THE CHRONICLES 
OF AMERICA SERIES 
ALLEN JOHNSON 
EDITOR 


THE NEW SOUTH 


HOLLAND THOMPSON 


KA 


THE NEW SOUTH 


https://archive.org/details/ne 


TEXTBOOK EDITION 


THE CHRONICLES 
OF AMERICA SERIES 
ALLEN JOHNSON 
EDITOR 
GERHARD R. LOMER 


CHARLES W. JEFFERYS 
ASSISTANT EDITORS 


~ > 2 


THE NEW SOUTH 


A CHRONICLE OF SOCIAL 
AND INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION 
BY HOLLAND THOMPSON 


NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO. 
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 


Copyright, 1919, by Yale University Press 


CONTENTS 


THE BACKGROUND 


THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES 
CHARGE 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 
THE FARMER AND THE LAND 
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 

LABOR CONDITIONS 

THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 
EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 

THE SOUTH OF TODAY 

THE REPUDIATION OF STATE DEBTS 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


INDEX 


“cc 


“ 


227 


235 


243 


THE NEW SOUTH 


CHAPTER I 
THE BACKGROUND 


Tue South of today is not the South of 1860 or 
even of 1865. There is a New South, though not 
perhaps in the sense usually understood, for no ex- 
pression has been more often misused in super- 
ficial discussion. Men have written as if the phrase 
indicated a new land and a new civilization, utterly 
unlike anything that had existed before and involv- 
ing a sharp break with the history and the tradi- 
tions of the past. Nothing could be more untrue. 
Peoples do not in one generation or in two rid 
themselves entirely of characteristics which have 
been developing for centuries. 

There is a New South, but it is a logical develop- 
ment from the Old South. The civilization of the 


South today has not been imposed from without 
1 


Q ' ‘THE NEW SOUTH 


but has been an evolution from within, though in- 
fluenced by the policy of the National Govern- 
ment. The Civil War changed the whole organiza- 
tion of Southern society, it is true, but it did not 
modify its essential attributes, to quote the ablest 
of the carpetbaggers, Albion W. Tourgée. Re- 
construction strengthened existing prejudices and 
created new bitterness, but the attempt failed to 
make of South Carolina another Massachusetts. 
The people resisted stubbornly, desperately, and in 
the end successfully, every attempt to impose upon 
them alien institutions. 

The story of Reconstruction has been told else- 
where.*. A combination of two ideas — high- 
minded altruism and a vindictive desire to humil- 
late a proud people for partisan advantage — 
wrought mischief which has not been repaired in 
nearly half a century. It is to be doubted, how- 
ever, whether Reconstruction actually changed in 
any essential point the beliefs of the South. Left 
to itself, the South would not, after the War, have 
given the vote to the negro. When left to itself 
still later, it took the ballot away. The South 
would not normally have accepted the negro as a 


*See The Sequel of Appomattox, by Walter Lynwood Fleming (in 
The Chronicles of America). 


THE BACKGROUND $s 


social equal. The attempt to force the barrier be- 
tween the races by legislation with the aid of bayo- 
nets failed. Without the taste of power during the 
Reconstruction period, the black South would not 
have demanded so much and the determination of 
the white South to dominate would not perhaps 
have been expressed so bitterly; but in any case 
the white South would have dominated. 
Economic and industrial development was hin- 
dered by Reconstruction. Men of vision had seen 
before the War that the South must become more 
nearly self-sufficient; and the results of the conflict 
had emphasized this idea. The South believed, 
and believes yet, that it was defeated by the block- 
ade and not by military force. According to this 
theory, the North won because the South could not 
manufacture goods for its needs, because it did not 
possess ships to bring in goods from abroad, and 
because it could not build a navy to defend its 
ports. Today it is clear that the South never had 
a chance to win, so long as the will to conquer was 
firm in the North. As soon as the War was over, 
the demand for greater industrial development 
made itself felt and gained in strength when Re- 
construction came; but during that period the 
people had to devote all their energies to living 


4 THE NEW SOUTH 


day by day, hoping for strength to endure. When 
property was being confiscated under the forms of 
law, only to be squandered by irresponsible legisla- 
tors, there was little incentive to remake the indus- 
trial system, and the ventures of the Reconstruction 
government into industrial affairs were not en- 
couraging. Farm property in the South — and lit- 
tle was left except farm property after the War — 
depreciated in value enormously in the decade fol- 
lowing 1860. Grimly, sullenly, the white man of 
the South fought again to secure domination, this 
time, however, of his own section only and not of 
the nation. When this had been achieved, a large 
portion of the population was overcome by that 
deadly apathy so often remarked by travelers who 
ventured to visit the land as they would have 
visited Africa. The white South wished only to 
be let alone. 

During this apathetic period there was some talk 
of the natural resources of the South; but there was 
little attempt on the part of Southerners to utilize 
these resources. There was talk of interesting for- 
eign capital, but little effective work was done to 
secure such capital. Many men feared the new 
problems which such development might bring 
in its train, while others, more numerous, were 


' THE BACKGROUND 5 


merely indifferent or lukewarm. Many of those 
who vaguely wished for a change did not know how 
to set about realizing their desires. The few men 
who really worked to stimulate a quicker economic 
life about 1880 had a thankless and apparently a 
hopeless task. 

Yet one must be careful not to write of the 
South as if it were a single country, inhabited by 
a homogeneous people. Historians and publicists 
have spoken, and continue to speak, of “‘Southern 
opinion” and of the “Southern attitude” as if these 
could be definitely weighed and measured. Noone 
who really knows the whole South could be guilty 
of such a mistake. The first difficulty is to deter- 
mine the limits of the South. The census classifi- 
cation of States is open to objection. Delaware, 
Maryland, and West Virginia are included in the 
South, and so is Kentucky. Missouri is excluded, 
but a place is made for the new State of Oklahoma. 
As to Delaware and Maryland, there may be a dif- 
ference of opinion, though it is difficult to justify the 
inclusion of the former. West Virginia is certainly 
not Southern, socially, politically, or economi- 
cally. Kentucky is doubtful, and it is difficult_to 
see why Missouri should be excluded from any list 
which includes Kentucky. Oklahoma is difficult 


6 THE NEW SOUTH 


to classify. But, at any rate the South is a large 
country, with a great variety of soil, climate, and 
population. As the crow flies, the distance from 
Richmond to Memphis, in an adjoining State, is 
greater than from Richmond to Bangor, Maine. 
From Richmond to Galveston is farther than from 
Richmond to Omaha or Duluth. Atlanta is usu- 
ally considered to be far down in the South, and yet 
the distance from Atlanta to Boston or Minneapo- 
lis is less than to El Paso. Again, New Orleans 
is nearer to Cincinnati than to Raleigh. 

There were, moreover, many racial strains in the 
South. The Scotch-Irish of the Piedmont in the 
Carolinas had, and have yet, little in common with 
the French of Louisiana. The lowlander of South 
Carolina and the hill men of Arkansas differed in 
more than economic condition. Even in the same 
State, different sections were not in entire accord. 
In Virginia and the Carolinas, for example, eco- 
nomic conditions and traditions — and traditions 
are yet a power in the South — differed greatly in 
different sections. 

As the years passed, apathy began to disappear 
in some parts of the South. Wiser men recognized 
that the old had gone never to return. Men began 
to face the inevitable. Instead of brooding upon 


THE BACKGROUND 7 


their grievances, they adjusted themselves, more 
or less successfully, to the new economic and social 
order, and by acting in harmony with it found that 
progress was not so impossible as they had sup- 
posed. White planters found that the net returns 
from their farms on which they themselves had 
labored were greater than when a larger force of ne- 
groes had been employed; shrewd men began to put 
their scanty savings together to take advantage of 
convenient water power. Securing the bare neces- 
sities of life was no longer a difficult problem for 
every one. Men began to find pleasure in activity 
rather than in mere passivity or obstruction. 
Somehow, somewhere, sometime, a new hope- 
fulness was born and this new spirit — evidence of 
new life — became embodied in “‘the New South.” 
The expression is said to have been used first by 
General Adam Badeau when stationed in South 
Carolina, but the New South of which he spoke was 
not the New South as it is understood today. Many 
others have used the term loosely to signify any 
change in economic or social conditions which they 
had discovered. The first man to use the expres- 
sion in a way which sent it vibrating through the 
whole nation was Henry W. Grady, the gifted edi- 
tor of the Ailanta Constitution. Ina speech made 


8 THE NEW SOUTH 


in 1886 by invitation of the New England Society 
of New York City, he took for his theme “the New 
South” and delivered an oration which, judged by 
its effects, had some of the marks of greatness. 
“The South,” he said, “‘has nothing for which to 
apologize. She believes that the late struggle be- 
tween the States was war and not rebellion, revolu- 
tion and not conspiracy.”” He went on, however, 
to express the feeling that the outcome had been 
for the best, and painted a picture of the new spir- 
it of the South, a trifle enthusiastic perhaps, but 
still recognizable. 

Today a New South may be said to be every- 
where apparent. The Old South still exists in 
nooks and corners of many States, it is true: there 
are communities, counties, groups of counties, 
which cling to the old ideas. In the hearts of 
thousands of men and women the Old South is en- 
shrined, and there is no room for the new; but the 
South as a whole is a New South, marked by a 
spirit of hopefulness, a belief in the future, and 
a desire to take a fuller part in the life of the na- 
tion. To trace the development of the new spirit 
and to discuss its manifestations is the purpose of 
this book. 


CHAPTER II 


THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 


As the year 1877 was beginning, the carpetbag 
governments in nine of the Southern States had 
been already overthrown. In two other States 
were two sets of officers, one of which represented 
the great mass of the whites while the other was 
based upon negro suffrage and was supported by 
Federal bayonets. Both sides seemed determined, 
and trouble was expected. The Republican con- 
testants in Florida had already yielded to a deci- 
sion of the Supreme Court of the State, but in 
South Carolina and Louisiana the Republican 
claimants held on until the orders to withdraw the 
troops were given in April, 1877. The withdrawal 
of the troops marked the definite end of Recon- 
struction. The Democratic claimants then took 
undisputed possession of the executive and legis- 
lative departments of these States. The native 


whites were again in entire charge of all the States 
9 


10 THE NEW SOUTH 


which had seceded. They now had the task of 
rebuilding the commonwealths shattered by war 
and by the aftermath of war. A new era for the 
South had dawned, and here properly begins the 
history of the New South. 

The first and most important problem, as the 
white South saw it, was the maintenance of white 
supremacy which had been gained with so much 
difficulty. In only three States — South Carolina, 
Mississippi, and Louisiana — were there negro ma- 
jorities. Obviously, if the whites could be in- 
duced or coerced to stand together, they could 
continue to control the governments in eight of the 
seceding States. The negre population, however, 
was not distributed uniformly over any of these 
States, so that, no matter how great the white 
preponderance in the State as a whole, there were 
counties or other civil divisions where negroes were 
in the majority. This meant that the issue of 
white supremacy was present in every State, for 
the negro majorities in such counties could elect 
the local officers and control the local governments. 

To attain a political consolidation of the white 
population all other issues must be subordinated. 
Differences of opinion and judgment must be held 
in abeyance. No question upon which white men 


CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 11 


might seriously disagree must be placed in the 
party platform, if any way to avoid such insertion 
could be found. If by any chance the majority 
adopted a course obnoxious to the minority, the 
decision must be accepted loyally if not cheerfully, 
and the full white vote must be cast. Objection 
to a candidate or measure must not be expressed 
at the ballot box. Personal ambition must be re- 
strained, and weakness and even unfitness in a 
candidate must be overlooked for the sake of 
white solidarity. 

The task of creating a permanently solid South 
was not easy. The Southerner had always been 
an individualist, freely exercising his right to vote 
independently, engaging in sharp political con- 
tests before 1861, and even during the War. The 
Confederate Congress wrangled impotently while 
Grant was thundering at the gates of Richmond. 
So strong was the memory of past differences, that 
old party designations were avoided. The politi- 
cal organization to which allegiance was demand- 
ed was generally called the Conservative party, 
and the Republican party was universally called 
the Radical party. The term Conservative was 
adopted partly as a contrast, partly because the 
peace party had been so called during the War, and 


12 THE NEW SOUTH 


especially because the name Democrat was obnox- 
ious to so many old Whigs. It was not until 1906 
that the term Conservative was officially dropped 
from the title of the dominant party in Alabama. 

It is not surprising that men continued to turn 
for leadership to those who had led in battle and, to 
a less extent, to those who had taken part in the 
civil government of the Confederacy. But for the 
humiliations of Reconstruction, some of these men 
might have been discredited, but the bitter experi- 
ences of those years had restored them to popular 
favor. As the Federal soldier marched out of the 
public buildings everywhere, the Confederate sol- 
dier marched in. These men had led in the contest 
against the scalawags and the carpetbaggers and 
many had suffered thereby. Now they came into 
their own. In some States the organization of 
voters was almost military. 

During the first years after the downfall of the 
Reconstruction governments the task of consolidat- 
ing the white South was measurably achieved. As 
some one flippantly put the case, there came to be 
in many sections “‘two kinds of people — Demo- 
crats and negroes.” It was the general feeling on 
the part of the whites that to fail to vote was shame- 
ful, to scratch a ticket was a crime, and to attempt 


CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 13 


to organize the negroes was treason to one’s race. 
The “Confederate brigadier”’ sounded the rallying 
cry at every election, and a military record came 
to be almost a requisite for political preferment. 
Men’s eyes were turned to the past, and on every 
stump were recounted again and again the horrors 
of Reconstruction and the valiant deeds of the 
Confederate soldiers. What a candidate had done 
in the past in another field seemed more important 
even than his actual qualifications for the office to 
which he aspired. A study of the Congressional 
Record or of lists of state officers proves the truth 
of thisstatement. In 1882, fourteen of the twenty- 
two United States Senators from the seceding 
States had military records and three had been 
civil officers of the Confederacy. Several States 
had solid delegations of ex-Confederate soldiers in 
both houses. When one reads the proceedings of 
Congress, he finds the names of Vance and Ransom, 
Hampton and Butler, Gordon and Wheeler, Harris 
and Bate, Cockrell and Vest, Walthall and Col- 
quitt, Morgan and Gibson, and dozens of other 
Confederate officers. 

The process of unifying the white South was 
not universally successful, however. Here and 
there were Republican islands in a Democratic or 


14 THE NEW SOUTH 


Conservative sea. The largest and most impor- 
tant exception was the Appalachian South, divided 
among eight different States. It is a large region, 
to this day thinly populated and lacking in means 
of communication with the outside world. Though 
it has some bustling cities, thriving towns, and 
prosperous communities, the Appalachian South 
today is predominantly rural. In the 216 counties 
in this region or its foothills, there were in 1910 
only 43 towns with more than 2500 inhabitants. 
This Appalachian region had been settled by 
emigrants from the lowlands. Some of them were 
of the thriftless sort who were forced from the 
better lands in the East by the inexorable working 
of economic law. By far the greater part, however, 
were of the same stock as the restless pioneers 
who poured over the mountains to flood the Mis- 
sissippi Valley. Students of the mountain people 
maintain that so small an accident as the breaking 
of a linchpin fixed one family forever in a moun- 
tain cove, while relatives went on to become the 
builders of new States in the interior. Cut off 
from the world in these mountains, there have been 
preserved to this day many of the idioms, folk- 
songs, superstitions, manners, customs, and habits 
of mind of Stuart England, as they were brought 


CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 15 


over by the early colonists. The steep farms 
afforded a scanty living, and though the cattle 
found luscious pasturage during the summer, they 
were half starved during the winter. If by chance 
the mountaineers had a surplus of any product, 
there was no one to whom they might sellit. They 
lived almost without the convenience of coinage as 
a means of exchange. Naturally in such a society | 
there was no place for slaves, and to this day ne- 
groes are not welcome in many mountain counties. 
But though these mountain people have missed 
contact with the outside world and have been de- 
prived of the stimulus of new ideas, they seldom 
give evidence of anything that can fairly be classed 
asdegeneracy. Ignorance, illiteracy, and suspend- 
ed or arrested development the traveler of today 
will find among them, and actions which will shock 
his present-day standards; but these same actions 
would hardly have shocked his own father’s great- 
grandfather. These isolated mountaineers have 
been aptly called “‘our contemporary ancestors.” 
The same people, it is true, had poured out of 
their cabins to meet Ferguson at King’s Mountain; 
they had followed Jackson to New Orleans and 
to Florida and they had felt the influence of the 
wave of nationalism which swept the country after 


16 THE NEW SOUTH 


the War of 1812. But back to their mountains 
they had gone, and the great current of national 
progress swept by them. The movement toward 
sectionalism, which developed after the Missouri 
Compromise, had left them cold. So the moun- 
taineers held to the Union. They did not volun- 
teer freely for the Confederacy, and they resisted 
conscription. How many were enlisted in the 
Union armies it is difficult to discover, certainly 
over 100,000. It is not surprising, therefore, that 
these people became Republicans and have so 
continued in their allegiance. 

Another element in the population having great 
influence in the South — in North Carolina, at 
least — was the Society of Friends. It was strong 
in both the central and the eastern sections. Many, 
but by no means all, of the Quakers opposed the 
Civil War and, after peace came, opposed the men 
who had been prominent in the War, that is, the 
dominant party. In spite of the social stigma at- 
taching to Republicanism, many of the Quakers 
have persisted in their membership in that party to 
the present day. In all the seceding States there 
was a Union element in 1861, and, while most of the 
men composing it finally went into the War with 
zeal, there were individuals who resisted stoutly. 


CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 17 


During the War they were abused without stint, 
but this criticism had only the effect of making 
them more stubborn. They naturally became Re- 
publicans after the War and furnished some of 
the votes which made Reconstruction possible. 
With these may be classed the few Northern men 
who remained in the South after the downfall of 
the Reconstruction governments. 

There was another class of people in the South, 
some of whom had been rabid secessionists and 
whose Republicanism had no other foundation 
than a desire for the loaves and fishes. The sala- 
ries attached to some of the Federal offices seemed 
enormous at that time and, before the prohibition 
wave swept the South, there were in the revenue 
service thousands of minor appointments for the 
faithful. These deputy marshals, “storekeepers 


> 


and gaugers,”’ and petty postmasters attempted 
to keep up a local organization. The collectors of 
internal revenue, United States marshals, other offi- 
cers of the Federal courts, and the postmasters in 
the larger towns controlled these men and therefore 
the state organizations. These Federal officials 
broke the unanimity of the white South, and they 
were supported by thousands of negroes. Some 


individuals among them were shrewd politicians, 


2 


18 THE NEW SOUTH 


but the contest was unequal from the beginning. 
On one side was intelligence, backed by loyal fol- 
lowers fiercely determined to rule. On the other 
was a leadership on the whole less intelligent, cer- 
tainly more selfish, with followers who were ig- 
norant and susceptible to cajolery or intimidation. 

Before the downfall of the Reconstruction govern- 
ments, and in the first few years afterward, there 
was much intimidation of negroes who wished 
to vote. Threats of loss of employment, eviction 
from house or plantation, or refusal of credit were 
frequent. In many sections such measures were 
enough, and Democrats were ordinarily chosen at 
the polls. Where the negroes were in a larger ma- 
jority, stronger measures were adopted. Around 
election time armed bands of whites would some- 
times patrol the roads wearing some special badge 
or garment. Men would gallop past the houses of 
negroes at night, firmg guns or pistols into the 
air and occasionally into the roofs of the houses. 
Negroes talking politics were occasionally visited 
and warned — sometimes with physical violence 
— to keep silent. On election day determined men 
with rifles or shotguns, ostensibly intending to go 
hunting after they had voted, gathered around 
the polls. An occasional random shot might kick 


CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 19 


up the dust near an approaching negro. Men 
actually or apparently the worse for liquor might 
stagger around, seeking an excuse for a fight. It 
is not surprising that among the negroes the im- 
pression that it was unwise to attempt to vote 
_ gained ground. 

Less crude but no less effective methods were 
employed later. As candidates or party organiza- 
tions furnished the ballots, the “tissue ballot” 
came into use. Half a dozen of these might easily 
be dropped into the box at one time. If the 
surplus ballots were withdrawn by a blindfolded 
official, the difference in length or in the texture or 
quality of the ballot made possible the withdrawal 
of an undue proportion of Republican votes. Usu- 
ally separate boxes were supplied for different sets 
of officers, and it was often provided that a ballot 
in the wrong box was void. An occasional inten- © 
tional shifting of boxes thus caused many illiterate 
negroes to throw away their votes. This scheme 
reached its climax in the “eight box law” of South 
Carolina which made illiterate voting ineffective 
without aid. Immediately after any literate Re- 
publican, white or black, left the polling place the 
boxes were shifted, and the illiterates whose tickets 
he had carefully arranged deposited their ballots 


20 THE NEW SOUTH 


in the wrong boxes. White boys of eighteen, if 
well grown, sometimes voted, while a young negro 
unable to produce any evidence of his age had 
difficulty in proving the attainment of his majority. 
In some precincts illiterate Republicans were ap- 
pointed officers of elections, and then the vote was 
juggled shamelessly. A study of election returns 
of some counties of the black belt shows occasional 
Democratic majorities greater than the total white 
population. The same tricks which were so long 
practiced in New York and Philadelphia were 
successful in the South. 

Conditions such as these were not prevalent over 
the entire South. Ina large proportion of the vot- 
ing precincts elections were as fair as anywhere in 
the United States; but it may be safely said that 
in few counties where the negroes approached or 
exceeded fifty per cent of the total population 
were elections conducted with anything more than 
a semblance of fairness. Yet in some sections the 
odds were too great, or else the whites lacked the 
resolution to carry out such extensive informal 
disfranchisement. For years North and South 
Carolina each sent at least one negro member to 
the House of Representatives and, but for flagrant 
gerrymandering, might have sent more. Indeed 


CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 21 


negro prosecuting attorneys were not unknown, 
and many of the black counties had negro officers. 
Some States, such as North Carolina, gave up local 
self-government almost entirely. The Legislature 
appointed the justices of the peace in every county, 
and these elected both the commissioners who con- 
trolled the finances of the county and also the 
board of education which appointed the school 
committeemen. Judges were elected by the State 
as a whole and held courts in all the counties in 
turn. To this day, a Superior Court judge sits only 
six months in one district and then moves on to an- 
other. Other States gave up local government toa 
greater or less extent, while still others sought to 
lessen the negro vote by strict registration laws 
and by the imposition of poll taxes. 

In many sections the negro ceased to make any 
attempt to vote, and the Republican organization 
became a skeleton, if indeed it continued at all. 
There was always the possibility of a revival, how- 
ever, and after 1876 the North often threatened 
Federal control of elections. The possibility of 
negro rule was therefore only suspended and not 
destroyed; it might at any time be restored by 
force. The possibility of the negro’s holding the 
balance of power seemed dangerous and ultimately 


Y 


5°) 


2 THE NEW SOUTH 
led to attempts to disfranchise him by law, which 


will be considered in another chapter. 

The relation of the races was not the only ques- 
tion which confronted the whites when they re- 
gained control of the state governments. The prob- 
lem of finance was equally fundamental. The in- 
crease in the total debt of the seceding States had 
been enormous. The difference between the debts 
of these States (excluding Texas) in 1860 and in the 
year in which they became most involved was 
nearly $135,000,000.: In proportion to the total 
wealth of theseStates, this debt was extremely high. 

Not all of this increase was due to carpetbag 
government. While, of course, the debts incurred 
for military purposes had been repudiated in ac- 
cordance with the Fourteenth Amendment, several 
of the States had issued bonds for other purposes 


t 


during the War or immediately afterwards before 
the advent of the Reconstruction governments. 
There were other millions of unpaid interest on all 
varieties of debts incurred before or after 1860. 
The Reconstruction debts had been incurred for 
various purposes, but bonds issued ostensibly to aid 


*See W. A. Scott, The Repudiation of State Debts, p. 276. Texas 
had practically no debt when it passed under Reconstruction govern- 
ment, but added $4,500,000 in the period. The total increase in the 
debt of all these Southern States was then nearly $140,000,000. 


CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 23 


in building railroads, canals, or levees made up the 
greater part of the total. These bonds, however, 
had been sold at a large discount, and only a small 
part of the money realized was applied to actual 
construction. 

Some of the States had escaped almost entirely 
any considerable increase of debt; others were bur- 
dened far beyond their ability to pay, especially as 
property valuations had declined nearly one-half.* 

The wholesale repudiation of their debts injured 
the credit of all the Southern States, and they have 
been loudly denounced for their action. Their 
spokesmen have justified their procedure in regard 
to the bonds issued by the carpetbag legislatures 
on the ground that they were voted by venal gov- 
ernments imposed by military force; that many of 
the bonds were fraudulent on their face; and that 
those who purchased them at a great discount were 
simply gambling upon the chance that the govern- 
ments issuing them would endure; that the greater 
part of these bonds were stolen by the officers; and 
that little or no benefit came to the State. Not all 
of the bonds which were repudiated or scaled down, 
however, belonged to this class. Many were un- 
doubtedly valid obligations on the part of the 


* See page 227 ff. 


24 THE NEW SOUTH 


States. The repudiation of these bonds was ex- 
cused on the ground that they were generally is- 
sued to aid railroads which had been practically 
seized by the Confederate or the United States gov- 
ernments and had been worn out for their bene- 
fit; that interest could not be paid during the war; 
and that war and the Reconstruction Acts had so 
reduced property values that payment of the full 
amount was impossible. The last reason is true of 
some States, though not of all. The prompt pay- 
ment of interest on the reduced indebtedness has 
done much to restore the credit of the South, and 
the bonds of some States now sell above par. 
Extravagance had helped te overthrow the car- 
petbag régime. The new governments were neces- 
sarily forced to be economical. Expenditures of 
all kinds were lessened. Government was reduced 
to its lowest terms, and the salaries of state officers 
were fixed at ridiculously small figures. Inade- 
quate school taxes were levied; the asylums for the 
insane, though kept alive, could not take care of all 
who should have been admitted; appropriations for 
higher education, if made at all, were small; there 
was little or no social legislation. The politicians 
taught the people that low taxes were the greatest 
possible good and, when prosperity began to return 


CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 25 


and a heavier burden of taxation might easily have 
been borne, the belief that the efficiency of a gov- 
ernment was measured by its parsimony had be- 
come a fixed idea. There was little scandal any- 
where. No governments in American history have 
been conducted with more economy and more 
fidelity than the governments of the Southern 
States during the first years after the Reconstruc- 
tion period. A few treasurers defaulted, but in 
most cases their difficulties rose from financial in- 
competence rather than from dishonesty, for a good 
soldier did not necessarily make a good treasurer. 
Few fortunes were founded on state contracts. 
The public buildings erected were honestly built 
and were often completed within the limits of the 
original appropriations. So small an amount was 
allowed that there would have been little to steal, 
even had the inclination been present. 

The decline in the prices of agricultural products 
after 1875 made living harder. The Greenback 
agitation* found some followers, and in a few scat- 
tered rural districts Greenbackers or Greenback 
Democrats were nominated. In a few districts the 
white men ventured to run two tickets, and in a 


t See The Agrarian Crusade, by Solon J. Buck (in The Chronicles of 
America). 


26 THE NEW SOUTH 


few cases the Greenback candidate won. This 
activity was a precursor of the agrarian revolt 
which later divided the South. There were also 
some Republican tickets with qualifying words in- 
tended to catch votes, but they had little success. 

Some strong men were sent to Congress, a very 
large proportion of whom had seen service in the 
Confederate army. Their presence aroused many 
sneers at “rebel brigadiers” and an immense 
amount of “bloody shirt” oratory. They accom- 
plished little for their section or for the nation, as 
they were always on the defensive and could hardly 
have been expected to have any consuming love 
for the Union, in which they had been kept by 
force. They were frequently taunted in debate in 
the hope that indiscreet answers would furnish 
campaign material for use in the North. Some- 
times they failed to control their tempers and their 
tongues and played into the hands of their op- 
ponents. They advocated no great reforms and 
showed little political vision. They clung to the 
time-honored doctrines of the Democratic party — 
tariff for revenue only, opposition to sumptuary 
laws, economy in expenditures, and abolition of the 
internal revenue taxes — and they made ponder- 
ous speeches upon the Constitution, “viewing with 


CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 27 


alarm” the encroachments of the Federal Gov- 
ernment upon the sphere of action marked out for 
the States. 

Partly because of constitutional objections, part- 
ly because of fear of Federal supervision of the 
administration of the measure, a majority of the 
Southern representatives opposed the Blair Bill, 
which might have hastened the progress of their 
section. This measure, now almost forgotten, was 
much discussed between 1882 and 1890 when it was 
finally shelved. It provided for national aid to 
education out of the surplus revenues of the Fed- 
eral Government, the distribution to be made in 
proportion to illiteracy. Though the South would 
have received a large share of this money, which it 
sorely needed for education, the experience of the 
South with Federal supervision had not been pleas- 
ant, and many feared that the measure might re- 
sult in another Freedmen’s Bureau.t Not all 
Southerners, however, were opposed to the project. 
Dr. J. L. M. Curry, agent of the Peabody Fund, 
did valiant service for the bill, and some mem- 
bers of Congress were strong advocates of the 
measure. Today we see a measure for national 


tSee The Sequel of Appomattor, by Walter Lynwood Fleming (in 
The Chronicles of America). 


28 THE NEW SOUTH 


aid to education fathered by Southerners and al- 
most unanimously supported by their colleagues. 

Though rotation in office was the rule in the rep- 
resentation in the House, the policy of reélecting 
Senators was generally followed, and some of them 
served long periods. Looking upon themselves as 
ambassadors of their States to an unfriendly court, 
they were always dignified and often austere. As 
time went on, their honesty, old-fashioned courtesy, 
and amiable social qualities gained for many the 
respect and affectionate esteem of their Northern 
colleagues. Many strong friendships sprang up, 
and through these personal relationships occasion- 
al bits of patronage and items of legislation were 
granted. Often, it is said, politicians who were ac- 
customed to assail one another in public sought 
each other’s society and were the best of friends 
in private. These Southern men were almost in- 
variably a frugal lot who lived from necessity with- 
in their salaries and used no questionable means 
of increasing their incomes. 

The election of Cleveland in 1884 gave to the 
South its first real participation in national affairs 
for a quarter of a century. Thomas F. Bayard 
of Delaware, L. Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi, and 
A. H. Garland of Arkansas were chosen for the 


CONFEDERATE SOLDIER TAKES CHARGE 29 


Cabinet, from which the scholarly Lamar was 
transferred to the Supreme Court. John G. Carlisle 
of Kentucky was Speaker, and Roger Q. Mills of 
Texas became Chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee of the House to succeed William R. 
Morrison. A fair share, if not more, of the more 
important diplomatic, consular, and administrative 
appointments went to Southerners. The South 
began to feel that it was again a part of the Union. 
However, though Cleveland had shown his friend- 
liness to their section, the Southern politicians, 
usually intensely partisan, could not appreciate the 
President’s attitude toward the civil service and 
other questions, and his bluntness offended many 
of them. They followed him on the tariff but op- 
posed him on most other questions, for his theory 
of Democracy and theirs diverged, and his kindly 
attitude was later repaid with ingratitude. 
During the period in which the “rebel briga- 
diers” had controlled their States a new generation 
had arisen which began to make itself felt between 
1885 and 1890. The Grange had tried to teach the 
farmers to think of themselves as a class, and the 
skilled workmen in a few occupations, in the bor- 
der States particularly, had been organized. The 
Greenback craze had created a distrust of the 


30 THE NEW SOUTH 


capitalists of the East. The fear of negro domina- 
tion was no longer so overmastering,and the natural 
ambition of the younger men began to show itself 
in factional contests. Younger men were coveting 
the places held by the old war-horses and were be- 
ginning to talk of cliques and rings. The Farmers’ 
Alliance was spreading like wildfire, and its mem- 
bers were expounding doctrines which seemed rank 
treason to the elderly gentlemen whose influence 
had once been so potent. It is now clear that their 
fall from power was inevitable, though they refused 
to believe it possible. 


CHAPTER II 
THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 


PRAcTICALLY all the farmers in the South, like those 
of the West, were chronically in debt, and after 
1870 the general tendency of the prices of agricul- 
tural products was downward. In spite of largely 
increased acreage — partly, to be sure, because of 
it — the total returns from the larger crops were 
hardly so great as had been received from a much 
smaller cultivated area. The Southern farmer be- 
gan to feel helpless and hopeless. Though usually 
suspicious of every movement coming from the 
North, he turned readily to the organization of the 
Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange. 
In fact, the hopeless apathy of the Southern farmer 
observed by Oliver Hudson Kelley, an agent of the 
Bureau of Agriculture, is said to have determined 
him to found the order. In spite of the turmoil 
of Reconstruction, the organization appeared in 
South Carolina and Mississippi in 1871. Tennessee, 
31 


32 THE NEW SOUTH 


Missouri, and Kentucky had already been invaded. 
During 1872 and 1873, the order spread rapidly in 
all the States which may be called Southern. The 
highest number reached was in the latter part of 
1875 when more than 6400 local granges were 
reported in the States which had seceded; and 
in Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, 
and Missouri there were nearly 4000 more. The 
total membership in the seceding States was more 
than 210,000 and including the border States, over 
355,000. Since negroes were not admitted, the 
proportion of the total white agricultural popula- 
tion in the Grange was perhaps as high in the 
South as in any other part of the Union. In the 
years that followed, the order underwent the same 
disintegration in the South as elsewhere. 

As a class the Southern Grangers did not take an 
active part in politics. The overshadowing ques- 
tion of the position of their States in the Union 
and the desire to preserve white supremacy pre- 
vented any great independent movement. In a 
few instances, men ran for Congress as Independ- 
ents or as Greenbackers, and in some cases they 
were elected; but the Southern farmers were not 
yet ready to break away from the organization 
which had delivered them from negro rule. There 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 33 


was not at that time in the South the same op- 
position to railroads that prevailed in the West. 
The need of railroads was felt so keenly that the 
practice of baiting them had not become popu- 
lar. Some railroad legislation was passed, largely 
through Granger influence, but it was not yet radi- 
cal. Nevertheless the Granger movement was by 
no means without permanent influence. It helped 
to develop class consciousness; it demonstrated that 
the Western and the Southern farmer had some 
interests in common; ard it also implanted in 
people’s minds the idea that legislation of an eco- 
nomic character was desirable. Heretofore the 
Southern farmer, so far as he had thought at all 
‘about the relation of the State to industry, had 
been a believer in laissez faire. Now he began to 
consider whether legislation might not be the rem- 
edy for poverty. Out of this serious attention to 
the needs of the farmer other organizations were 
to arise and to build upon the foundations laid by 
the Grange. 

About 1875 there appeared in Texas and other 
States local organizations of farmers, known as 
Farmers’ Alliances, and in 1879 a Grand State Al- 
liance was formed in Texas. The purposes were 
similar to those set forth by the Grange. In 


3 


34 THE NEW SOUTH 


Arkansas appeared the Agricultural Wheel and the 
Brothers of Freedom, which were soon consoli- 
dated. The Farmers’ Union of Louisiana and the 
Alliance of Texas were also united under the name 
of the National Farmers’ Alliance and Coéperative 
Union of America. This was soon united with the 
Arkansas Wheel, which had crossed state lines. 

A session of the National Alliance was held at 
St. Louis in 1889 with delegates present from every 
Southern State, except West Virginia, and from 
some of the Middle Western States. The National 
Assembly of the Knights of Labor was also held in 
St. Louis at this time, and a joint declaration of 
beliefs was put forth. This platform called for the 
issue of more paper money, abolition of national 
banks, free coinage of silver, legislation to prevent 
trusts and corners, tariff reform, government owner- 
ship of railroads, and restriction of public lands to 
actual settlers. 

The next year, the annual convention of the 
Alliance was held at Ocala, Florida, and the Oca- 
la platform was published. This meeting recom- 
mended the so-called sub-treasury plan by which 
the Federal Government was to construct ware- 
houses for agricultural products. In these the farm- 
er might deposit his non-perishable agricultural 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 35 


products, and receive 80 per cent of their market 
value in greenbacks. Surely the Southern farmer 
had shaken off much of his traditional conserva- 
tism in approving such a demand as this! The 
explanation is not far to seek. 

The high price of cotton in the years immedi- 
ately following the War was the economic salvation 
of the South. Whatever may have been the diffi- 
culties in its production, the returns repaid the 
outlay and more. The quantity was less than 
the world demanded. Not until 1870-71 did the 
production approach that of the crops before the 
War. Then, with the increase in production and 
general financial stringency came a sharp decrease 
in price. Between 1880 and 1890 the price was 
not much above the cost of production, and after 
1890 the price fell still lower. When middling 
cotton brought less than seven cents a pound in 
New York, the small producer got little more than 
five cents for his bale or two. The price of wheat 
and corn was correspondingly low, if the farmer 
had a surplus to sell at harvest time. If he bought 
Western corn or flour in the spring on credit, the 
price he paid included shrinkage, storage, freight, 
and the exorbitant profit of the merchant. The 
low price received by the Western producer had 


36 THE NEW SOUTH 
been much increased before the cereals reached the 


Southern consumer. The Southern farmer was con- 
sequently becoming desperate and was threatening 
revolt against the established order. 

While Southern delegates joined the Western 
Alliance in the organization of the People’s party 
in 1891 and 1892. the majority of the members in 
the South chose an easier way of attaining their 
object: they entered the Democratic primaries and 
conventions and captured them. Im State after 
State, men in sympathy with the farmers were 
chosen to office, often over old leaders who had 
been supposed to have life tenure of their positions. 
In some cases these leaders retained their offices, 
if not their influence, by subscribing to the de- 
mands of the Alliance. Perhaps some could do 
this without reservation; others, Senators parti- 
cularly, justified themselves on the theory that a 
legislature had the right to speak for the State 
and instruct those chosen to represent it. 

The feeling of the farmer that he was being op- 
pressed threatened to develop into an obsession. 
His hatred of “‘money-power,” “trusts,” “corners,” 
and the “hirelings of Wall Street” found expres- 
sion in his opposition to the local lawyers and mer- 
chants, and, in fact, to the residents of the towns in 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 37 


general. The idea began to grow up that any one 
living in a town was necessarily an enemy to the 
farmer. The prevalent agricultural point of view 
came to be that only the farmer was a wealth pro- 
ducer, and that all others were parasites who sat 
in the shade while he worked in the sun and who 
lived upon the products of his labor. This bitter- 
ness the farmer extended to the old political leaders 
whom he had regarded with veneration in the past. 
These old Confederate soldiers, he believed, had 
allowed him to be robbed. 

The state Democratic Convention of Georgia in 
1890 pledged all candidates for office to support 
the demands of the Farmers’ Alliance, including 
the sub-treasury “or some better system.” Sena- 
tor John B. Gordon, however, refused to pledge him- 
self and was reélected nevertheless. The leader of 
the Alliance was nominated and elected gover- 
nor. In Alabama, Reuben F. Kolb, the Commis- 
sioner of Agriculture, almost obtained the Demo- 
cratic nomination for governor. Two years later, 
he again entered the primary and, declaring that 
he had been cheated out of the nomination, ran 
independently as the candidate of the Jefferson- 
ian Democracy. On the face of the returns, the 
regular candidate was elected, but Kolb pointed 


38 THE NEW SOUTH 


out the fact that the Democratic majorities came 
from the black counties, while the white counties 
had given a majority for him. Again in 1894 Kolb 
entered the race for governor and again declared 
that he had been counted out, as he had not only 
the Jeffersonian Democracy behind him but also the 
endorsement of the Republicans and the Populists. 

Undoubtedly the controlling influence in Demo- 
cratic councils in some of the Southern States had 
been exercised by a very small element in the popu- 
lation. A few men, almost a “Family Compact” 
either held the important offices themselves, or de- 
cided who should hold them, and fixed the party 
policy so far as it had a policy other than the main- 
tenance of white supremacy. The governments 
were generally honest, economical, and cheap. The 
leaders, partly because they themselves believed 
in limiting the function of government and part- 
ly because they believed that the voters would op- 
pose any extension, had prevented any constructive 
legislation. Events showed that they had misun- 
derstood their people. When the revolt came, the 
farmer legislators showed themselves willing to 
vote money liberally for education and for other 
purposes which were once considered outside the 
sphere of government. 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 39 


South Carolina furnished the most striking ex- 
ample of this revolt. In that State the families 
which had governed before the War continued the 
direction of affairs. By a rather unusual compro- 
mise, the large western population of the State 
had been balanced against the greater wealth of 
the east. Consequently there was overrepresenta- 
tion of the east after the negro had been deprived 
of the ballot. It was charged — and with some 
show of truth — that a small group of men cluster- 
ing around Charleston exercised an entirely dispro- 
portionate share of influence in party management. 
The farmers, with a growing class consciousness, 
began to resent this injustice and found a leader 
ready and anxious to direct them. 

In March, 1890, the delegates of the Farmers’ 
Association decided to secure the nomination for 
governor for Benjamin R. Tillman, who had de- 
voted much of his time for four years to arousing 
the farmers. The contest for the nomination was 
begun in May and, after a bitter struggle, Tillman 
won easily in the convention in September. The 
“straight outs,’’ dazed and humiliated, ran an in- 
dependent candidate. Tillman and his followers 
accepted the challenge and the conflict took form as 
a struggle between mass and class. The farmers’ 


40 THE NEW SOUTH 


leader, though not himself illiterate, obscure, or 
poor, raged up and down the State frankly and 
brutally preaching class war. He held up Charles- 
ton as a sink of iniquity, and he promised legis- 
lation to cleanse it. Perhaps a majority of the 
whites really believed his charges and put faith in 
his doctrines. If not, the fetish of party regularity 
drew the votes necessary to make up the deficiency. 
Tillman had been regularly nominated in a Demo- 
cratic convention, and South Carolinians had been 
trained to vote the party ticket. He was elected 
by a large majority. 

At the end of Tillman’s first term two years later, 
he was again a candidate, and the convention which 
nominated him approved the Ocala platform. 
Since the party machinery was in control of the 
Tillmanites, the opposition adopted the name 
“Cleveland Democracy” and sought to undo the 
revolution. The result was never doubtful. Till- 
man was reélected by an overwhelming majority, 
and on the expiration of his term was sent to the 
United States Senate, which he shocked by his 
passionate utterances as he had so often shocked 
his own State. The attitude of the educated and 
cultivated part of the population of South Car- 
olina toward Tillman affords a parallel to that 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 41 


of Tory England toward Lloyd George twenty 
years later. The parallel may be extended fur- 
ther. Tillman, in time, modified some of his 
extreme opinions, won over many of his oppo- 
nents, and gained the respect of his colleagues just 
as Lloyd George has done; and South Carolina 
grew to have pride in her sturdy fighter whose life 
ended just as his fourth term in the Senate was 
almost done. 

The election of Tillman as Governor and then as 
Senator was a real revolution, for South Carolina 
had been long represented in the United States 
Senate by Wade Hampton and Matthew C. Butler. 
both distinguished soldiers and representatives of 
the old régime. Hampton, under whose leadership 
the carpetbag government had been overthrown. 
had been a popular idol. Both he and Butler had 
won the respect of their colleagues in the Senate 
and had reflected credit upon their State. But 
such services now availed nothing. Both they and 
others like them were swept out, to be replaced by 
the partisans of the new order. 

Nothing was omitted by the reformers to humil- 
iate what had been the ruling portion of the popu- 
lation. The liquor traffic was made a state mo- 
nopoly by the dispensary system modeled on the 


42 THE NEW SOUTH 


Gothenburg plan: no liquor was sold to be drunk 
on the premises, and the amount allowed a pur- 
chaser was limited. It was hoped the revenue thus 
received would permit a considerable reduction in 
the tax rate. These hopes, however, were not 
realized, and scandals concerning the purchasing 
agency kept the State in a turmoil for years. Other 
legislation was more successful. An agricultural 
and mechanical college for men was founded at the 
old home of John C. Calhoun at Clemson. A nor- 
mal and industrial college for girls has also proved 
very successful. The appropriations to the state 
university were reduced on the ground that it was 
an aristocratic institution, but on the other hand 
funds for public schools were increased. 

Not all the members of the Alliance remained 
in the Democratic party. Populist electors were 
nominated in every Southern State in 1892, except 
in Louisiana, where a combined Republican and 
Populist ticket was named. In no State did the 
new party secure a majority, but in Alabama, 
Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, the 
Populist vote was large. In North Carolina, al- 
ways inclined to independence, the combined Re: 
-publican and Populist vote was larger than that 
cast for Democratic electors. It was obvious that 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 43 


Democratic supremacy was imperiled, if the new 
party continued its amazing growth. 

The politicians, Republican and Democratic, set 
out to win the insurgents. Some shrewd political 
manipulators, scenting future profit for themselves, 
had joined the new movement and were willing to 
trade. During 1893, 1894, and 1895 the Republi- 
cans were generally successful. In many States 
there was more or less coéperation in state and 
county tickets, in spite of the disfavor with which 
the Republican party had been regarded in the 
South. In North Carolina J. C. Pritchard, a regu- 
lar Republican, was elected to the United States 
Senate, to fill the unexpired term of Senator Vance, 
but the Populist state chairman, Marion Butler, 
cool, calculating, and shrewd, took the full term to 
succeed Senator Ransom. The Democratic party 
had maintained control for twenty years, and it 
was held responsible for all the ills from which the 
farmer suffered. Then, too, some of the leaders of 
the new party felt that they would have greater 
opportunities for preferment by coéperating with 
a party in which the number of white voters 
was small. 

The doctrine of free silver had been making con- 
verts among the Democrats, however, and early in 


44 THE NEW SOUTH 


1896 it was clear that a majority of the Southern 
delegates to the national convention would favor 
a silver plank. The action of the convention in 
nominating Bryan and Sewall is told in another 
volume.’ Bryan was also endorsed by the Popu- 
list convention, but that convention refused to en- 
dorse Sewall and nominated Thomas E. Watson 
for Vice-President. A majority of the Populist 
convention favored a strict party fight, but the 
managers were shrewd, and the occasion mani- 
festly offered great opportunities for trading. In 
twenty-six States the electoral tickets were divided 
between Democrats and Populists. Among these 
States were Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and 
North Carolina. But codperation with Republi- 
cans on local legislative and state tickets often oc- 
curred. In North Carolina, a fusion legislature 
was elected, and a Republican was chosen governor 
by the aid of Populist votes, though one faction of 
the Populists nominated a separate ticket. The 
judicial and congressional nominations were di- 
vided. The apparent inconsistency of voting for 
Bryan for President and at the same time support- 
ing Republicans who might be expected to oppose 


t The Agrarian Crusade, by Solon J. Buck (in The Chronicles of 
America). ; 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 45 


him in Congress was accepted without flinching. 
According to the bargain made two years before, 
when a Republican was sent to the United States 
Senate for an unexpired term by the aid of the 
Populist votes, Senator Pritchard was reélected. 
The experience of North Carolina with fusion 
government was a reminder of the Reconstruction 
days. The Republicans had dilated upon “local 
self-government” and the Populists had swallowed 
the bait. The Legislature changed the form of 
county government, by which the board of county 
commissioners had been named by the justices 
of the peace, and made the board elective. This 
turned over to the blacks counties in which several 
of the largest towns in the State were situated. 
Negro politicians were chosen to office, and lawless- 
ness and violence followed. In Wilmington there 
was an uprising of the whites, who took possession 
of the city government by force. The Legislature 
was again Democratic in 1898 and began to prepare 
an amendment which should disfranchise a large 
proportion of the 125,000 negro voters of the State. 
There was codperation between the Republican and 
Populist organizations again in 1900, but too many 
Populists had returned to their former allegiance. 
The restrictive amendment, of which more will be 


46 THE NEW SOUTH 

said presently, was carried by an overwhelming ma- 
jority at the special election in the summer, and at 
the regular election in November the Democratic 
ticket was chosen by an overwhelming majority. 

The fusion of 1896 and the rising prices of agri- 
cultural products killed the Populist party in the 
South, but the influence of the movement remains 
to this day. It has had some effect im lessening 
political intolerance, for those of the Populists who 
returned to the Democratic party came back with- 
out apology, while others have since classed them- 
selves as Republicans. The Populist attitude to- 
ward public education was on the whole friendly, 
and more money has since been demanded and 
expended for public schools. 

Perhaps the greatest effect of the Populist move- 
ment was the overthrow of the old political organ- 
izations. In some States a few men had ruled al- 
most by common consent. They had exerted a 
great influence upon legislation — not by use of the 
vulgar arts of the lobbyists, but by the plea of 
party advantage or by the prophecy of party loss. 
They had given their States clean government and 
cheap government, but nothing more. A morbid 
fear of taxation, or rather of the effects of taxation 
upon the people, was their greatest sm. The 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 47 


agrarian movement took them unawares. They 
were unable to realize that between the South of 
1890 and another, older South, there was a great 
gap. They could not interpret the half-coherent 
speech of the small farmer, who had come to feel 
that he had been wronged and struck out blindly at 
those whom he had previously trusted. New and 
unknown men appeared in Washington to take the 
place of men whose character, ability, and length 
of service had made them national figures. The 
governorship of the States went to men whose 
chief qualifications seemed to be prominence in the 
affairs of the Alliance or else bitter tongues. 
Though the Populists, for the most part, re- 
turned to the Democratic party, and the suffrage 
amendments, which will be mentioned present- 
ly, made the possibility of Republican success ex- 
tremely remote, the ‘‘ old guard”’ has never regained 
its former position. In all the Southern States 
party control has been for years in the hands of the 
common man. The men he chooses to office are 
those who understand his psychology and can 
speak his language. Real primary elections were 
common in the South years before they were in- 
troduced elsewhere, and the man who is the choice 
of the majority in the Democratic primary wins. 


48 THE NEW SOUTH 


Some of the men chosen to high office in the State 
and nation are men of ability and high character, 
who recall the best traditions of Southern states- 
manship; others are parochial and mediocre; and 
some are blatant demagogues who bring discredit 
upon their State and their section and who cannot 
be restrained from “talking for Buncombe.” 

The election of a Democratic President in 1884 
had stirred the smoldering distrust of the South on 
the part of the North. The well-known fact that 
the negro vote in the South did not have the influ- 
ence its numbers warranted aroused the North to 
demand a Federal elections law, which was voiced 
by bills introduced by Senator Hoar of Massa- 
chusetts and by Henry Cabot Lodge, then a mem- 
ber of the House of Representatives. Lodge’s bill, 
which was passed by the House in 1890, permitted 
Federal officials to supervise and control congres- 
sional elections. This so-called “Force Bill” was 
bitterly opposed by the Southerners and was finally 
defeated in the Senate by the aid of the votes of the 
silver Senators from the West, but the escape was so 
narrow that it set Southerners to finding another way 
of suppressing the negro vote than by force or fraud. 
Later the division of the white vote by the Populist 
party also endangered white supremacy in the South. 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 49 


In this same year (1890) Mississippi framed a 
new constitution, which required as a prerequisite 
for voting a residence of two years in the State and 
one year in the district or town. A poll tax of two 
dollars — to be increased to three at the discretion 
of the county commissioners — was levied.on all 
able-bodied men between twenty-one and sixty. 
This tax, and all other taxes due for the two previ- 
ous years, must be paid before the 1st of February 
of the election year. All these provisions, though 
applying equally to all the population, greatly 
lessened the negro vote. Negroes are notoriously 
migratory, and a large proportion never remain two 
years in the same place. The poll tax could not be 
collected by legal process, and to pay the tax for 
two years, four dollars or more, eight months in ad- 
vance of an election, seemed to the average negro 
to be rank extravagance. Moreover, few politi- 
cians are reckless enough to arrange for the pay- 
ment of poll taxes in exchange for the promised 
delivery of votes eight months away, when half the 
would-be voters might be in another county, or 
even in another State. To clinch the matter, the 
constitution further provided that after 1892, in 
addition to the qualifications mentioned above, a 


person desiring to vote must be able to read any 
4 


50 THE NEW SOUTH 


section of the constitution, “or he shall be able ta 
understand the same when read to him, or give 
a reasonable interpretation thereof.” Even when 
fairly administered, this section operated to dis- 
franchise more negroes than whites, for fewer can 
read and fewer can understand a legal instrument. 
But it is obvious that the opportunities for dis- 
crimination are great: a simple section can be read 
to an illiterate white, while a more difficult section, 
filled with technicalities, may. be read to a negro 
applicant; and the phrase ‘“‘a reasonable interpre- 
tation” may mean one thing in the case of a negro 
and quite another where a white man is concerned. 
It is perhaps not surprising that only 5123 Republi- 
can votes were reported in 1896, and hardly more, 
in 1912, were cast for Taft and Roosevelt together. 

South Carolina followed the lead of Mississippi 
a little more frankly in 1895, by adopting suffrage 
amendments which provided for two years’ resi- 
dence in the State, one year in the county, and the 
payment of a poll tax six months before the election. 
Up to 1898 any person who could read any section 
of the constitution, or could understand and explain 
it when read by the registration officer, could have 
his name placed upon a permanent roll and could 
vote thereafter, provided he satisfied the other 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 51 


requirements already mentioned. After January 1, 
1898, every one presenting himself for registration 
had to be able to read and write any section of the 
constitution, or else must have paid taxes the pre- 
ceding year on property assessed at three hundred 
dollars or over. The list of disqualifying crimes is 
long, including those of which negroes are most 
commonly found guilty, such as larceny, false pre- 
tence, bigamy, adultery, wife-beating, and receiv- 
ing stolen goods. To insure the complexion of the 
permanent roll, the registration was conducted in 
each county by a board of “three discreet persons” 
appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice 
and consent of the Senate. 

It would seem that either of these constitutions 
would serve to reduce the negro vote sufficiently, 
while allowing practically all white men to vote. 
Large discretion, however, is lodged in the officers 
of election, and Democratic control in these matters 
is safe only so long as the white men stick together. 
Louisiana went a step further in 1898 and intro- 


’ 


duced the famous “grandfather clause” into her 
constitution. Other requirements were similar to 
those already mentioned. Two years’ residence in 
the State, one year in the parish, and six months 


in the precinct were preliminary conditions; in 


52 THE NEW SOUTH 


addition the applicant must be able to read and 
write in English or his mother tongue, or he must 
be the owner of property assessed for three hundred 
dollars or more. 

This general requirement of literacy or owner- 
ship of property was.waived, however, in case of 
foreigners naturalized before January 1, 1898, who 
had lived in the State five years, and in the case of 
men who had voted in any State before 1867, or of 
sons or grandsons of such persons. These could be 
placed upon a permanent roll to be made up before 
September 1, 1898, and should have the right to 
vote upon complying with the residence and poll 
tax requirements. Practically all white persons of 
native stock either voted in some State in 1867 or 
were descended from some one who had so voted. 
Few negroes in any State, and none in the South, 
were voters in that year. It is obvious that suf- 
frage was open to white but barred to negro illiter- 
ates. Apparently the only whites debarred under 
this clause were the illiterate and indigent sons of 
foreign-born fathers. 

North Carolina adopted a new suffrage article 
in 1900 which is much simpler than those just 
described. It requires two years’ residence in the 
State, one in the county, and the payment of poll 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 52 


tax before the 1st of May in the election year. A 
uniform educational qualification is laid down, but 
the “permanent roll” is also included. No “male 
person who was on January 1, 1867, or at any other 
time prior thereto, entitled to vote under the laws 
of any State in the United States, wherein he then 
resided, and no lineal descendant of any such per- 
son shall be denied the right to register and vote at 
any election in the State by reason of his failure to 
possess the educational qualifications herein pre- 
scribed: Provided he shall have registered in ac- 
cordance with the terms of this section prior to 
December 1, 1908.”’ In other words, any white il- 
literate thirteen years old or over when the amend- 
ment was adopted would not be deprived of his vote 
because of the lack of educational qualifications. 
No other State had given so long a time as this. 
The “grandfather clause” here was shrewdly 
drawn. Free negroes voted in North Carolina un 
til 1835, and under the terms of the clause any negré 
who could prove descent from a negro voter could 
not be debarred because of illiteracy. Negroes 
voted in a few States in 1867, and they or their 
descendants were exempt from the educational 
test. Of course the number of these was negli- 
gible, and the clause accomplished precisely what 


54 THE NEW SOUTH 


it was intended to do — that is, it disfranchised a 
large proportion of the negroes and yet allowed 
the whites to vote. The extension of the time of 
registration until 1908, eight years after the amend- 
ment was adopted and six after it went into effect, 
made the disfranchisement of any considerable 
number of whites impossible. 

Alabama followed in 1901, combining the South 
Carolina and the Louisiana plans and including 
the usual residence and poll tax requirements, as 
well as the permanent roll. This was to be made 
up before December 20, 1902, and included soldiers 
of the United States, or of the State of Alabama in 
any war, soldiers of the Confederate States, their 
lawful descendants, and “men of good character 
who understood the duties and obligations of citi- 
zenship under a republican form of government.” 
After the permanent roll has been made up, the 
applicant for registration must be able to read and 
write and must have worked the greater part of the 
twelve months next preceding, or he or his wife 
must own forty acres of land or real estate or per- 
sonal property assessed at not less than three hun- 
dred dollars. A long list of disqualifying crimes 
was added, including wife-beating and conviction 
for vagrancy. As if this were not enough, after 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 55 


1903 an applicant for registration might be re- 
quired to state where he had lived during the pre- 
ceding five years, the name or names by which 
known, and the names of his employers. Refusal 
to answer was made a bar to registration, and wilful 
misstatement was regarded as perjury. 

Oklahoma adopted its disfranchising amendment 
in 1910, without valid reason so far as any one 
outside the State could see, as the proportion of ne- 
groes was very small. An attempt was made per- 
manently to disfranchise the illiterate negro by 
the “grandfather clause,” while allowing illiterate 
white voters to voteforever. Other States allowed 
a limited time in which to register on a permanent 
roll, after which all illiterates were to be disfran- 
chised. Oklahoma sought to keep suffrage perma- 
nently open to illiterate whites, while closing it to 
illiterate negroes. This amendment was declared 
unconstitutional by the United States Supreme 
Court in June, 1915, on the ground that a State can- 
not reéstablish conditions existing before the rati- 
fication of the Fifteenth Amendment, even though 
the disfranchising amendment contained no “ex- 
press words of exclusion” but “inherently brings 
that result into existence.”"* What the Court will 


t Guinn vs. United States, 238 U. S., 347. 


56 THE NEW SOUTH 


do with other similar constitutional amendments 
when they are brought before it is not so certain. 
All differ somewhat, and it is possible that the 
Court may let the whole or a part of some of them 
stand. If not, it is probable that straight educa- 
tional and property qualifications will be substitu- 
ted. In fact, if the Court disapproves the perma- 
nent roll but allows the remainder to stand, educa- 
tional and property qualifications will prevail in 
several States. 

All these plans for disfranchisement have accom- 
plished the desired results up to the present time. 
The negro vote has been greatly reduced and elec- 
tions are decided by the votes of white men. In 
some States, negroes who could easily pass the tests 
no longer take the trouble to go to the polls. The 
number of white voters also grows smaller. Some 
fail to pay the poll tax, and others stay away from 
the polls because, as a rule, the result has been de- 
cided in the primary elections. Since a Democrat- 
ic nomination is practically equivalent to election, 
many voters who have taken part in the primaries 
neglect to vote on election day. Only in North 
Carolina is there evidence of the growth of a strong 
Republican opposition. In 1908, Taft received 
over 114,000 votes, and the Republican candidate 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 357 


for governor 107,000. In 1916 Hughes received 
120,000 votes as against 168,000 for Wilson. 

What was done with the negro when he was thus 
rendered politically helpless? Was there an at- 
tempt to take from him other things than the bal- 
lot? Theanswer must bein theaffirmative. Men 
advocated segregation in common carriers, in pub- 
lic places, and even in places of residences. An at- 
tempt to confine appropriations for negro schools 
to the amount of taxes directly paid by the negroes 
has been made; men have sought office on a plat- 
form of practical serfdom for the negro. But 
although some few have achieved temporary suc- 
cesses — at least they have been elected — their 
programs have not been carried out. The “Jim 
Crow” car is common and the negro schools do not 
get appropriations equal to those of the whites, but 
little else has been done. In fact, evidences of a 
reaction in favor of the negro soon became ap- 
parent. The late Governor Charles B. Aycock of 
North Carolina at the beginning of this century 
won his triumphs on a platform of justice for 
the negro. 

The question of the liquor traffic began to engage 
the attention of the Southern people very soon 
after the end of Reconstruction. The great problem 


58 THE NEW SOUTH 


was the sale of liquor in the unpoliced country 
districts, and especially to negroes. By special 
legislative acts forbidding the sale of liquor within 
a given number of miles of a church or a school a 
large part of the South was made dry. Local op- 
tion acts continued the restrictive work until the 
sale of liquor outside of the larger incorporated 
towns became rare. In some States, acts applying 
to the whole State forbade the sale outside of 
towns. By concentrating their efforts upon the 
towns, the anti-saloon forces made a large number 
of them dry also, but there was so much illicit sale 
that employers often found that Monday was a 
wasted day. 

State wide prohibition began in 1907 with Okla- 
homa and Georgia, and State after State followed 
‘until, in 1914, ten States were wholly dry, and in 
large areas of the other Southern States the sale 
of intoxicants was forbidden through local option. 
Southern members of Congress urged the submis- 
sion of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitu- 
tion, forbidding manufacture or sale of intoxicants 
in the nation. Every Southern State promptly 
ratified the Amendment when it was submitted 
by Congress. 

Unfortunately many negroes when deprived of 


THE REVOLT OF THE COMMON MAN 59 


alcohol began to use drugs, such as cocaine, and the 
effect morally and physically was worse than that 
of liquor. The “coke fiend’’ became a familiar 
sight in the police courts of Southern cities, and the 
underground traffic in the drug is still a serious prob- 
lem. The new Federal law has helped to control 
the evil, but both cocaine and alcohol are still sold 
to negroes, sometimes by pedlars of their own race, 
sometimes by unscrupulous white men. The con- 
sumption of both is less, however, than before the 
restrictive legislation. The South has traveled far 
from its old opposition to sumptuary laws. Like 
State Rights, this principle is only invoked when 
convenient. Starting largely as a movement to 
keep whiskey from the negro and, to a somewhat 
less extent, from the white laborer, prohibition has 
become popular. On the whole it has worked well 
in the South though “‘moonshining”’ is undoubted- 
ly increasing. The enormous price eagerly paid. 
for whiskey in the “bone-dry”’ States has led to 
a revival of the illicit distillery, which had been 
almost stamped out. 


CHAPTER IV 
THE FARMER AND THE LAND 


Tue end of Reconstruction found the tenant sys- 
tem and the “crop lien” firmly fastened upon the 
South. The plantation system had broken down 
since the owner no longer had slaves to work his 
land, capital to pay wages, or credit on which to 
borrow the necessary funds. Many of the great 
plantations had already been broken up and sold, 
while others, divided into tracts of convenient size, 
had been rented to white or negro tenants. What 
had been one plantation became a dozen farms, 
@ score, or even more. Men who owned smaller 
tracts found it difficult to hire or to keep labor, 
and many retained only the land. which they or 
their sons could work and rented the remainder of 
their farms. This system is still characteristic of 
Southern agriculture. 

Few of the landless whites and practically none 


of the negroes had sufficient money reserve to 
60 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 61 


maintain themselves for a year and hence no capi- 
tal to apply to the land on which they were tenants. 
Yet the land was there ready to produce, the labor 
was there, more or less willing to work if it could 
but live while the crop was growing. The country 
merchant had already assumed the office of banker 
to the tenant farmer, and this position he still 
holds in spite of all efforts to dislodge him. His 
customers include not only tenants but some land- 
owners, white or black. They buy from him, dur- 
ing the months before the crop is gathered, the 
food, clothing, and other supplies necessary for 
existence, and as many simple luxuries as he will 
permit. When the crops are gathered, he buys 
them, or at least the share of them belonging to the 
tenant, subtracts the store accounts, and turns over 
the surplus, if any, to the farmers. 

Unlike other bankers, the merchant charges no 
interest upon the capital he advances, but he is 
paid nevertheless. For every pound of bacon, meal, 
and flour, for every gallon of molasses, for every 
yard of cloth, for every plug of tobacco or tin of 
snuff which the customer consumes during the 
spring and summer, an advanced price is charged 
to him on the merchant’s books. With thousands 
of these merchants selling to hundreds of thousands 


62 THE NEW SOUTH 


of farmers over a wide area, it is of course impos: 
sible to state the average difference between credit 
and cash prices. Investigations made in different 
sections show a wide variation depending upon cus- 
tom, competition, the reliability and industry of 
the customer, the amount of advances, and the 
length of credit. Since a large part of the advances 
are made during the six, or even four months before 
the crops are gathered, the difference between cash 
and credit prices amounts often to an interest 
charge of forty to one hundred per cent or even 
more a year. These advanced credit prices, and 
consequently the high interest rates, may be paid 
not only upon food, clothing, and other personal 
goods, but also, occasionally, upon tools, farming 
implements, fertilizers, and work animals. 

The merchant is supposed to be protected against 
loss by the institution of the crop lien and the chat- 
tel mortgage. By one or the other of these the 
farmer is enabled to mortgage his growing, or even 
his unplanted crops, his farming implements, his 
cattle, and horses, if he owns them. If heisa land- 
owner, the land may be included in a mortgage as 
additional security. The crop is conveyed to the 
mortgagee as in an ordinary land mortgage, and 
the tenant cannot hold back his crop for a better 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 63 


price, or seek a better market for any part of it, 
until all his obligations have been settled. Dis- 
posing of mortgaged property is a serious offense 
and no one not desirous of abetting fraud will buy 
property which he has reason to suspect has been 
mortgaged. As a result of this system in some 
sections, years ago, nine-tenths of the farmers were 
in debt. Undoubtedly the prices credited for the 
crops have been less than might have been ob- 
tained in a market absolutely free. If the crops a 
farmer raises bring less than the advances, the bal- 
ance is carried over to the next year and no other 
merchant will give credit to a man whose accounts 
with his former creditor are not clear. In the past 
the signing of one of these legal instruments has 
often reduced the farmer to a state of peonage. 
Naturally the merchant who has begun to extend 
credit, sometimes before the seed is in the ground, 
has a voice in deciding what crops shall be planted. 
The favorite crops in the past have been tobacco 
and cotton, particularly the latter. Both contain 
comparatively large value in small bulk; both can 
be stored conveniently, with little danger of deteri- 
oration; neither is liable to a total failure; a ready 
market for both is always available; and neither 
tempts the thief until it is ripe. Only winter 


64 THE NEW SOUTH 


wheat, sown in the fall and reaped in early summer, 
is grown in the South, and the crop is somewhat 
uncertain. A tenant who has secured advances on 
a crop of wheat during the fall and winter may 
easily move to an adjoining county or State in the 
spring and plant cotton there. Half a crop of 
corn may easily be stolen, eaten by animals, or con- 
sumed by the tenant while still green. A further 
reason for not encouraging the production of corn 
and wheat is the profit the merchant makes by the 
sale of imported flour, meal, and bacon. Cotton 
is therefore almost the only product of sections 
admirably suited to the growing of corn or to the 
raising of hogs. The country merchant has helped 
to keep the South poor. 

Yet in spite of the apparently exorbitant per- 
centage of profit, few country merchants become 
rich. Ina year of drouth, or of flood, many of their 
debtors may not be able to pay their accounts, 
even though their intentions are of the best. Others 
may prove shiftless and neglect their fields. Still 
others may be deliberately dishonest and, after 
getting as large advances as possible, abandon their 
crops leaving both the landowner and the merchant 
in the lurch. These creditors must then either 
attempt to harvest the crop by hired labor, with 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 65 


the hope of reducing their loss, or else charge the 
whole to profit and loss. The illness or death of 
the debtor may also prevent the proper cultivation 
of the crop he has planted. For these different 
reasons every country merchant is likely to accu- 
mulate many bad debts which may finally throw 
him into bankruptcy. Those who succeed are 
exceptionally shrewd or very fortunate. 

The relation of the tenant to his landlord varies 
in different parts of the South. Many different 
plans of landholding have been tried since 1865, 
and traces of all of them may be found throughout 
the length and breadth of the South. One was a 
modified serfdom, in which the tenant worked for 
the landlord four or five days in every week for a. 
small wage. In addition he had a house, firewood, 
and several acres of land which he might cultivate 
on his own account. According to another plan, 
the landlerd promised to pay a fixed sum of money 
to the laborer when the crop was gathered. Both 
plans had their origin primarily in the landlord’s 
poverty, but were reénforced by the tenant’s un- 
reliability. These plans, as well as combinations of 
these with some others to be mentioned, have now 
practically died out. There remain the following 


alternatives: land may be rented for a fixed sum of 
5 


66 THE NEW SOUTH 


money per acre, to be paid when the crops are 
sold, or for a fixed quantity of produce, so many 
bushels of corn or so many pounds of cotton being 
paid for every acre; or, more commonly, land may 
be rented on some form of share tenancy by which 
the risk as well as the profit is shared by both tenant 
and landowner. 

Share tenancy assumes various forms. In some 
sections a rough understanding grew up that, in the 
division of a crop, one-third was to be allotted to 
the land, one-third to live stock, seed, and tools, 
and one-third to labor. If the tenant brought 
nothing but his bare hands, he received only the 
share supposed to be due to labor; if he owned 
working animals and implements, he received in 
addition the share supposed to be due to them. 
This arrangement, modified in individual cases, 
still persists, especially where the tenants are white. 
As various forms of industrial enterprise have 
continued to draw labor from the farms, the share 
assigned to labor by this form of tenancy has 
increased until, in perhaps the greater part of the 
South and certainly in the cotton-growing sections, 
it is usually one-half. 

The ordinary arrangement of share tenancy un- 
der which the negro in the cotton belt now works 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND $7 


provides that the landowner shall furnish a cabin in 
which the family may live and an acre or two for a 
garden. In addition, working stock, implements, 
and seed are supplied by the owner of the land. 
Both tenant and owner share the cost of fertilizers 
if any are used, and divide equally the expenses of 
preparing the crop for market and the proceeds of 
the sale. This arrangement means, of course, that 
the capitalist takes the laborer into a real part- 
nership. Both embark in a venture the deferred 
results of which are dependent chiefly upon the in- 
dustry and good faith of the laborer. By a seem- 
ing paradox it is only the laborer’s unreliability 
which gives him such an opportunity, for if he were 
more dependable, the landowner would prefer in 
most cases to pay wages and take the whole of 
the crop. Because the average negro laborer can- 
not be depended upon to be faithful, he is giv- 
en a greater opportunity, contrary to all ordinary 
moral maxims. 

When the share tenant lives on the land he may 
be a part of two different systems. There are some 
large plantations over which the owners or man- 
agers exercise close supervision. The horses cr, 
more generally, the mules are housed in large com- 
mon stables or sheds and are properly looked after. 


68 THE NEW SOUTH 


Some attempt is made to see that tools and imple- 
ments are kept in order. If the tenant falls behind 
in his work and allows his crop to be overrun with 
grass or is unable to pick the cotton as it opens, the 
owner hires help, if possible, and charges the cost 
against the tenant. In other words, the owner at- 
tempts to apply to agriculture some of the principles 
of industrial organization. The success of such at- 
tempts varies. The negro tenant generally resents 
close supervision; but on the other hand he enjoys 
the community life of a large plantation. In the 
end, in the majority of cases the personal equation 
determines whether the negro stays or moves. 

At the other extreme is the landowner who turns 
over his land to the negro and hopes for some re- 
turn. If the tenant is industrious and ambitious, 
the landowner gets something and is relieved of the 
trouble of supervision. Often, however, he finds 
at the end of the year that the mules have deteri- 
orated from being worked through the day and 
driven or ridden over the country at night; the 
tools and implements are broken or damaged; and 
the fences have been used for firewood, though an 
abundant supply could have been obtained by a 
few hours’ labor. Very often the landlord’s share 
of the small crop will not really compensate him for 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 69 


the depreciated value of his property, for land 
rented without supervision is likely to decrease in 
fertility and to bring in meager returns. 

A more successful arrangement between the two 
extremes is often seen in sections where the popu- 
lation is largely white and land is held in smaller 
tracts. Here a white farmer who owns more land 
than he or his sons can cultivate marks off a tract 
for a tenant, white or black, who may be said to 
work with his landlord. Both he and others of his 
family may work an occasional day for the land- 
lord, receiving pay either in kind orincash. Rela- 
tions between such families often become close, and 
the tenant may remain on the property for years. 
In some sections there are numerous examples of 
what might be called permanent tenants. Some- 
times such a tenant ultimately purchases the land 
upon which he has worked or other land in the 
neighborhood. 

The plantation owner may be a merchant-land- 
lord also and may furnish supplies to his tenants. 
He keeps only staple articles, but he may give an 
order on a neighboring store for those not in stock 
or may even furnish small sums of money on occa- 
sion. The tenants are not allowed to buy as much 
as they choose either in the plantation store or in 


70 THE NEW SOUTH 


the local store at the crossroads. At the beginning 
of the year the landlord or the merchant generally 
allows a credit ranging from fifty to two hundred 
dollars but rarely higher and attempts to make the 
tenant distribute the purchases over the whole 
period during which the crop is growing. If per- 
mitted, many, perhaps a large majority of the ten- 
ants, might use up their credit months before the 
crop was gathered. In such cases the merchant or 
landlord, or both, must make further advances to 
save what they have already invested or else must 
see the tenant abandon his crops and move. 

These relations between landlord and tenant 
show much diversity, but certain conditions prevail 
everywhere. Few tenants can sustain themselves 
until the crop is gathered, and a very large per- 
centage of them must eat and wear their crops 
before they are gathered — a circumstance which 
will create no surprise unless the reader makes the 
common error of thinking of them as capitalists. 
Though the landlord in effect takes his tenants into 
partnership, they are really only laborers, and few 
laborers anywhere are six or eight months ahead of 
destitution. How many city laborers, even those 
with skilled trades, could exist without credit if 
their wages were paid only once a year? How 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 71 


many of them would have prudence or foresight 
enough to conserve their wages when finally paid 
and make them last until the next annual pay- 
ment? The fault for which the tenant is to be 
blamed is that he does not take advantage of two 
courses of action open to him: first, to raise a con- 
siderable part of the food he consumes; and sec- 
ond, to struggle persistently to become independ- 
ent of the merchant. Thousands of tenants have 
achieved their economic freedom, and all could if 
they would only make an intelligent and continued 
effort to do so. 

Nowhere else in the United States has the negro 
the same opportunity to become self-sustaining, 
but his improvidence keeps him poor. Too often 
he allows what little garden he has to be choked 
with weeds through his shiftlessness. One of the 
shrewdest observers and fairest critics of the negro, 
Alfred Holt Stone, says of the Mississippi negro: 
“In a plantation experience of more than twelve 
years, during which I have been a close observer of 
the economic life of the plantation negro, I have 
not known one to anticipate the future by investing 
the earnings of one year in supplies for the next. 

The idea seems to be that the money from 
a crop already gathered is theirs, to be spent as 


72 THE NEW SOUTH 


fancy suggests, while the crop to be made must 
take care of itself, or be taken care of by the 
‘white-folks.’”* This statement is not so true of 
the negroes of the Upper South, many of whom 
are more intelligent, and have developed foresight 
and self-reliance. 

The theory that there is an organized conspiracy 
over the whole South to keep the negro in a state of 
peonage is frequently advanced by ignorant or dis- 
ingenuous apologists for the negro, but this belief 
cannot be defended. The merchants usually pre- 
fer to sell for cash, and more and more of them are 
reluctant to sell on credit. In some cotton towns 
no merchant will sell on credit, and the landlord is 
obliged to furnish supplies to those who cannot pay. 
The landowners generally would much prefer a 
group of prosperous permanent tenants who could 
be depended upon to give some thought to the crop 
of the future as well as to that of the present. In 
the South as a whole the negro finds little difficulty 
in buying land, if he can make a moderate first pay- 
ment. It is true that some are cheated by the 
merchant or the landlord. Prices charged for sup- 
plies are too high, and the prices credited for crops 
are too low, but the debtors are hardly swindled te 


t Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem. p. 188- 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND tS 


a greater extent than the ignorant and illiterate 
elsewhere. 

- The condition of the white tenant is sometimes 
little better than that of the negro. He usually 
farms a larger tract, 83.8 acres on the average (in 
1910), as against 39.6 acres for the negro, and he is 
on the whole more prosperous; but there are many 
who live from hand to mouth, move frequently, 
habitually get into debt to the merchant or the 
- landlord, and have little or no surplus at settling 
time. In the South in 1910 there were 866,000 
white tenant farmers who cultivated 20.5 per cent 
of all the land, and since that time white tenancy 
has been increasing. The increase of land owner- 
ship is greater among the negroes than among the 
whites, who are in many cases illiterates. This il- 
literacy is one cause of their poverty, but not the 
only cause: a part of it is moral, involving a lack of 
steadfast purpose, and a part is physical. The re- 
searches conducted by the United States Govern- 
ment, the state boards of health, and the Rocke- 
feller Foundation show clearly that much of the 
- indolence charged to the less prosperous Southern 
rural whites is due to the effect of the hookworm, a 
tiny intestinal parasite common in most tropical 
and subtropical regions and probably brought 


74 THE NEW SOUTH 


from Africa or the West Indies by the negro. The 
Rockefeller Foundation is now spending nearly 
$300,000 a year in financing, wholly or in part, at- 
tempts to eradicate the disease in eight Southern 
States and in fifteen foreign countries. 

The parasite enters the body from polluted soil, 
usually through the feet, asa large part of the rural 
population goes barefoot in the summer; it makes 
its way to the intestinal canal, where it fixes itself, 
grows, and lays eggs which are voided and hatch in 
the soil. Since most country districts are without 
sanitary closets, reinfection may occur again and 
again, until an individual harbors a host of these 
tiny bloodsuckers, which interfere with his diges- 
tion and sap his vitality. It is now believed that 
the morbid appetites of the “‘clay eaters” are due 
to this infection. The fact that the negro who in- 
troduced the curse is less susceptible to the infec- 
tion and is less affected by it than the white man is 
one of life’s ironies. | 

There is a brighter side to this picture, however. 
Of all the cultivated land in the South 65 per cent 
is worked by owners (white 60.6 per cent; colored 
4.4 per cent) and this land is on the whole much 
better tilled than that let to tenants. It is true 
that some of the landowners are chronically in debt, 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 75 


burdened with mortgages and with advances for 
supplies. Some of them probably produce less to 
the acre than tenants working under close super- 
vision, but the percentage of farms mortgaged is 
less in the South than in any other part of the coun- 
try except the Mountain Division, and unofficial 
testimony indicates that few farms are lost through 
foreclosure. 

For years the agricultural colleges and the ex- 
periment stations offered good advice to the South- 
ern farmer, but they reached only a small propor- 
tion. Their bulletins had a small circulation and 
were so full of technical expressions as to be almost 
unintelligible to the average farmer. Recently 
the writers have attempted to make themselves 
more easily understood, and the usefulness of their 
publications has consequently increased. The bul- 
letins of the Department of Agriculture are read 
in increasing numbers, and several agricultural 
papers have a wide circulation. The “farmer’s 
institutes” where experts in various lines speak 
on their specialties are well attended, and the ex- 
perimental farms to which few visitors came at 
first are now popular. 

Two other agencies are doing much for agricul- 
tural betterment. One is the county demonstrator, 


76 THE NEW SOUTH 


and the other boys’ and girls’ clubs. Both are 
due to the foresight and wisdom of the late Dr. 
Seaman A. Knapp, of the United States Department 
of Agriculture. As early as 1903 Dr. Knapp had 
been showing by practical demonstration how the 
farmers of Texas might circumvent the boll weevil, 
which was threatening to make an end of cotton- 
growing in that State. He was able to increase 
the yield of cotton on a pest-ridden farm. The 
idea of the boys’ corn club was not new when Dr. 
Knapp took it up in 1908 and made it a nation- 
al institution. The girls’ canning club was soon 
added to the list, and then came the pig club for 
boys and the poultry club for girls. 

The General Education Board, which, with its 
large resources, had been seeking the best way to 
aid education in the South, was forced to the con- 
clusion that any educational development must be 
preceded by economic improvement. The farm 
production of the South was less than that of other 
sections, and until this production could be in- 
creased, taxation, no matter how heavy, could not 
provide sufficient money for really efficient schools. 
After a study of the whole field of agricultural 
education, the ideas of Dr. Knapp were adopted 
as the basis of the work and, by arrangement with 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 77 


the Department of Agriculture, Dr. Knapp himself 
was placed in charge. The appropriations to the 
Department of Agriculture had been made for the 
extermination or circumvention of the boll wee- 
vil and could not be used for purely educational 
work in States where the weevil had not appeared. 
A division of territory was now made: the Depart- 
ment financed demonstration work in those States 
affected by the pest and the General Education 
Board bore the expense in the other States. En- 
tire supervision of the work was in the hands of 
the Department of Agriculture, which made all 
appointments and disbursed allfunds. The Board 
furnished funds but assumed no authority. The 
history issued by the General Education Board 
says: “Dr. Knapp endeavored to teach his hearers 
not only how to raise cotton and corn, but how to 
conduct farming as a business — how to ascertain 
the cost of a crop, how to find out whether they 
were making or losing money. As rapidly as pos- 
sible the scope was broadened for the purpose of 
making the farmer more and more independent. 
He was stimulated to raise stock, to produce feed 
and forage for his stock, and to interest himself in 
truck gardening, hog-raising, etc.” 

The method used was to appoint county, district, 


78 THE NEW SOUTH 


and state demonstration agents who would in- 
duce different farmers to cultivate a limited area 
according to specific directions. As these agents 
were appointed by the Department of Agriculture, 
the farmer was flattered by being singled out by 
the Government. In most cases the results of the 
experiments were far superior to those which the 
farmer had obtained merely by following tradition, 
and he usually applied the successful methods to 
his whole farm. Some of his neighbors, who visited 
the demonstration plot to scoff at the idea that any 
one in Washington could teach a farmer how to 
grow cotton or corn, were wise enough to recognize 
the improvement and to follow the directions. 
Every successful demonstration farm was thus a 
center of influence, and the work was continued 
after Dr. Knapp’s death under the charge of his 
son, Bradford Knapp. 

The idea of the boys’ corn club was vitalized in 
1908 by Dr. Knapp, who planned to establish a 
corn club in every neighborhood, with county and 
state organizations. Each boy was to cultivate a 
measured acre of land in corn, according to direc- 
tions and keep a strict account of the cost. The 
work of his father, or of a hired man, in ploughing 
the land must be charged against the plot at the 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 79 


market rate. Manure, or fertilizer, and seed were 
likewise to be charged, but the main work of culti- 
vation was to be done by the boy himself. The crop 
was to be measured by two disinterested witnesses 
who should certify to the result. Local pride was 
depended upon to furnish prizes for the county or- 
ganization, but the most successful boys in every 
State were to be taken on a trip to Washington, 
there to shake hands with the Secretary of Agri- 
culture and the President. This appeal to the 
imagination of youth was a master touch. 
Thousands of boys were interested and achieved 
results which were truly startling. In every State 
the average yield from the boys’ acres was larger 
than the state average, in some cases almost five 
times as great. One South Carolina boy produced 
on his acre in 1910 over 228 bushels, and in 1913 an 
Alabama boy reached high-water mark with nearly 
233 bushels. Hundreds of boys produced over 100 
bushels to the acre, and the average of the boys 
in South Carolina was nearly 69 bushels, compared 
with an average of less than 20 for the adult farmers. 
The pig clubs which followed have likewise been 
successful and have stimulated an interest in good 
stock and proper methods of caring for it. Many 
country banks have financed these operations by 


80 THE NEW SOUTH 


buying hogs by the carload and selling to the club 
members on easy terms. 

Girls’ canning clubs were organized by Dr. Knapp 
in 1910. Girls were encouraged to plant a tenth of 
an acre in tomatoes. ‘Trained demonstrators then 
traveled from place to place and showed them how 
to use portable canning outfits. The girls met, 
first at one house and then at another, to preserve 
their tomatoes, and soon they began to preserve 
many other vegetables and fruits. Two girls in 
Tennessee are said to have preserved 126 different 
varieties of food. Some of these clubs have gained 
more than a local reputation for their products and 
have been able to sell their whole output to hotels 
or to institutions. Though the monetary gain has 
been worth something, the addition to the limited 
dietary of the homes has been worth more, and the 
social influence of these clubs has been considerable. 
The small farmer in the South is not a social being, 
and anything which makes for codperation is valu- 
able. The poultry clubs which were an exten- 
sion of the canning club idea have been successful. 
The club idea, indeed, has been extended beyond 
the limits of the South. Congress, recognizing its 
value, has taken over and extended the work and 
has supported it liberally. Today market-garden 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 81 


clubs for the manufacturing cities, potato clubs, 
mother-and-daughter clubs, and perhaps others 
have grown out of the vision of Dr. Knapp. 
Though these activities have had a great effect in 
improving the South, that section has not yet been 
transformed into an Eden. In spite of farm de- 
monstrations, experiment stations, and boys’ and 
girls’ clubs, the stubborn inertia of a rural popula- 
tion fixed on the soil has only been shocked, not 
routed. Much land is barely scratched instead of 
being ploughed deep; millions of acres bear no 
cover crops but lose their fertility through the 
leaching of valuable constituents during the winter. 
Fertilizer is bought at exorbitant prices, while the 
richness of the barnyard goes to waste, and legumes 
are neglected; land is allowed to wash into gullies 
which soon become ravines. Farms which would 
produce excellent corn and hay are supplied with 
these products from the Middle West; millions of 
pounds of Western pork are consumed in regions 
where hogs can be easily and cheaply raised; butter 
from Illinois or Wisconsin is brought to sections 
admirably adapted to dairying; and apples from 
Oregon and honey from Ohio are sold in the towns. 
In several typical counties an average of $4,000,000 


was sent abroad for products which could easily 
6 


82 THE NEW SOUTH 


have been raised at home. In Texas some of the 
bankers have been refusing credit to supply mer- 
chants who do not encourage the production of 
food crops as well as cotton. 

Throughout the South there are thousands of 
homes into which no newspaper comes, certainly 
no agricultural paper, and in which there are few 
books, except perhaps school books. The cooking 
is sometimes done with a few simple utensils over 
the open fire. Water must be brought from a 
spring at the foot of the hill, at an expenditure of 
strength and endurance. The cramped house has 
no conveniences to lighten labor or to awaken 
pride. The overworked wife and mother has no 
social life, except perhaps attendance at the serv- 
ices at the country church to which the family 
rides inaspringless wagon. Such families see their 
neighbors prosper without attempting to discover 
the secret for themselves. Blank fatalism pos- 
sesses them. They do not realize that they could 
prosper. New methods of cultivation, they think, 
are not for them since they have no capital to 
purchase machinery. 

On the other hand, one sees more Ford cars than 


t An illuminating series of studies of rural life is being issued by 
the Bureau of Extension of the University of North Carolina. 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 83 


teams at many country churches, and many larger 
automobiles as well. Some Southern States are 
spending millions for better roads, and the farmer 
or his son or daughter can easily run into town in 
the afternoon carrying a little produce which more 
than pays for any purchases. Tractors are seen at 
work here and there, and agricultural machinery 
is under the sheds. Many houses have private 
water systems and a few farmers have harnessed the 
brooks for electric lights. The gas engine which 
pumps the water runs the corn sheller or the wood 
saw. The rural telephone spreads like a web over 
the countryside. Into these houses the carrier 
brings the daily or semi-weekly paper from the 
neighboring town, agricultural journals, and some 
magazines of national circulation; a piano stands 
in the parlor; and perhaps a college pennant or two 
hang somewhere, for many farm boys and girls go 
tocollege. In spite of the short terms of the public 
schools, many manage to get some sort of prepara- 
tion for college, and in the South more college stu- 
dents come from farm homes than from town or 
city. This encouraging picture is true, no less 
than the other, and the number of such progressive 
farm homes is fortunately growing larger. 

A greater range of products is being cultivated 


84 THE NEW SOUTH 


throughout the South, though more cotton and 
tobacco are being produced than ever before. The 
output of corn, wheat, hay, and pork has increased 
in recent years, though the section is not yet self- 
sufficient. The growing of early vegetables and 
fruits for Northern markets is a flourishing indus- 
try in some sections where land supposedly almost 
worthless has been found to be admirably adapted 
for this purpose. An increasing acreage in various 
legumes not only furnishes forage but enriches the 
soil. Silos are to be seen here and there, and there 
are some excellent herds of dairy cattle, though the 
scarcity of reliable labor makes this form of farm- 
ing hazardous. The cattle tick is being conquered, 
and more beef is being produced. Thoroughbred 
hogs and poultry are common. 

With the great rise in the price of the farmer’s 
products since 1910, the man. who farms with 
knowledge and method is growing prosperous. 
Farmers are taking advantage of the Federal Farm 
Loan Act and are paying off many mortgages. The 
necessity of asking for credit is diminishing, and 
men have contracted to buy land and have paid for 
it from the first crop. While the things the farmer 
must buy have risen in price, his products have 
risen even higher in value; and in those sections of 


THE FARMER AND THE LAND 85 


the South suited to mixed farming there need be 
comparatively little outgo. 

One is tempted to hope that the lane has turned 
for the Southern farmer. Partly owing to his ignor- 
ance and inertia, partly to circumstances difficult 
to overcome, his lot after 1870 was not easy, and 
from 1870 to 1910 is a full generation. An in- 
dividual who grew to manhood on a Southern farm 
during that period may be excused for a gloomy 
outlook upon the world. He finds it difficult to 
believe that prosperity has arrived, or that it will 
last. The number who have been convinced of 
the brighter outlook, however, is increasing. 


CHAPTER V 
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 


Tuoucs the Old South was in the main agricultural, 
it was not entirely destitute of industrial skill. 
The recent industrial development is really a revi- 
val, not a revolution, in some parts of the South. 
In 1810, according to Tench Coxe’s semi-official 
Statement of Arts and Manufactures, the value of 
the textile products of North Carolina was greater 
than that of Massachusetts. Every farmhouse 
had spinning-wheels and one loom or several on 
which the women of the family spun yarn and wove 
cloth for the family wardrobe. On the large plan- 
tations negro women produced much of the cloth 
for both slaves and family. Except on special oc- 
casions, a very large proportion of the clothing 
worn by the average Southern community was of 
household or local manufacture. Hats were made 
of fur, wool, or plaited straw. Hides were tanned 


on the plantations or more commonly at a local 
86 


INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 87 


tannery and were made into shoes by local cobblers, 
white or black. 

Local cabinet-makers made furniture, all of it 
strong, and some of it good in line and finish. 
Many of the pieces sold by dealers in antiques in 
the great cities as coming from Europe by way of 
the South were made by cabinet-makers in South- 
ern villages in the first half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Farm wagons as well as carriages with 
some pretensions to elegance were made in local 
shops. In fact, up te 1810 or 1820 it seemed that 
the logical development of one or two of the South 
Atlantic States would be into frugal manufacturing 
commonwealths. Few of the thousands of small 
shops developed into real manufacturing establish- 
ments, however, though many continued to exist. 
The belief in the profits apparently to be made 
from the cultivation of cotton and tobacco changed 
the ideals of the people. To own a plantation on 
which he might lead a patriarchal existence became 
the ambition of the successful man. Even the 
lawyer, the doctor, or the merchant was likely to 
own a plantation to which he expected to retire, if 
indeed he did not already live on it while he en- 
gaged in his other occupation. As the century 
went on, the section began to depend more and 


88 THE NEW SOUTH 


more upon other parts of the country or upon 
Europe to supply its wants, and general interest in 
Southern industries began to wane. 

Textile establishments had appeared early in 
the century. The first cotton mili in North Caro- 
lina was built in 1810 and one in Georgia about 
the same time. Much of the machinery for the 
former was built by local workmen. Other mills 
were built in the succeeding years until in 1860 
there were about 160 in the Southern States, with 
300,000 spindles, and a yearly product worth 
more than $8,000,000. The establishments were 
small, less than one-third the average size of the 
mills in New England, and few attempted io 
supply more than the local demand for coarse yarn 
which the country women knit into socks or wove 
into cloth. The surplus was peddled from wagons 
in adjoining counties or even in a neighboring 
State. Little attempt was made to seek a wider 
outlet, and many of these mills could supply the 
small local demand by running only a few months 
in the year. 

During the Civil War, however, these mills were 
worked to their full capacity. At the cessation of 
hostilities many mills were literally worn out; others 
were destroyed by the invading armies; and fewer 


INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 89 


were in operation in 1870 than before the War. 
During the next decade, hope of industrial success 
began to return to the South. The mills in opera- 
tion were making some money; the high price of 
cotton had brought money into the section; and a 
few men had saved enough to revive the industry. 
Old mills were enlarged, and new mills were built. 
The number in operation in 1880 was about the 
same as in 1860, but the number of spindles was 
nearly twice as great. 

The Cotton Exposition at Atlanta in 188i and 
the New Orleans Exposition in 1884 gave an im- 
petus to the construction of mills. There were 
prophecies of future success in the industry, though 
some self-appointed guardians of the South proved, 
to their own satisfaction at least, that neither the 
section nor the people were adapted to the manu- 
facture of cotton and that all their efforts should be 
devoted to the production of raw material for the 
mills of New England. Difficulties were magnified 
and advantages were minimized by those whose 
interests were opposed to Southern industrial devel- 
opment, but the movement had now gained mo- 
mentum and was not to be stopped. Timidly and 
hesitantly, capital for building mills was scraped 
together in dozens of Southern communities, and 


90 THE NEW SOUTH 


the number of spindles was doubled between 1880 
and 1885 and continued to increase. 

In developing this Southern industry there were 
many difficulties to be overcome, and mistakes were 
sometimes made. Seduced by apparent cheapness, 
many of the new mills bought machinery which the 
New England mills had discarded for better pat- 
terns, or because of a change of product. Opera- 
tives had to be drawn from the farms and needed to 
be trained not only to work in the mills but also to 
habits of regularity and punctuality. The New 
England overseers who were imported for this pur- 
pose sometimes failed in dealing with these new 
recruits to industrialism because of inability to 
make due allowance for their limitations. Accus- 
tomed to the truck system in agriculture, the man- 
agers often paid wages in scrip always good for 
supplies at the company store but redeemable in 
cash only at infrequent intervals. The operatives 
therefore sometimes found that they had exchanged 
one sort of economic dependence for another. An- 
other difficulty was that a place for Southern yarn 
and Southern cloth had to be gained in the market, 
and this was difficult of accomplishment for the 
product was often not up to the Northern standard. 

Managing ability, however, was found not to be 


INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 91 


so rare in the South as had been supposed. Some 
of the managers, drawn perhaps from the village 
store, the small town bank, or the farm, succeeded 
so well in the broader field that others were encour- 
aged to seek similar industrial success. As the 
construction of new mills went on, the temper of 
the South Atlantic States began to change. The 
people began to believe in Southern industrial de- 
velopment and to be eager to invest their savings 
in something other than a land mortgage. An in- 
stalment plan by which the savings of the peo- 
ple, small individually but large in the aggregate, 
were united, furnished capital for mills in scores of 
towns and villages. In 1890 there were nearly a 
million and three-quarters spindles in the South 
compared with less than six hundred thousand ten 
years before. 

It seemed as though nearly every mill was profit- 
able, and the occasional failures did not seriously 
check the movement, which developed about 1900 
almost into a craze in some parts of the South. In 
these sections every town talked of building one 
mill or more. The machine shops of the North, 
which had been cold or at least indifferent to 
Southern development, woke up, as Southern mills 
began to double or triple their equipment out of 


92 THE NEW SOUTH 


their profits. Agents were sent to the South to 
encourage the building of new mills, and to give 
advice and aid in planning them. The new mill- 
owners were good customers. They had learned 
wisdom by the mistakes of the pioneers, and they 
demanded the best machinery with all the latest 
devices. Long credit was now freely offered by 
Northern manufacturers of machinery, and some 
of them even subscribed for stock — to be paid, 
of course, in machinery. 

The Northern textile manufacturers also woke 
up. They found that in coarse yarns the Southern 
mills were successfully competing with their prod- 
ucts. Some pessimistic representatives of the in- 
dustry in the North prophesied that the Southern 
mills would soon control the market. Some New 
England mills built branch mills in the South; some 
turned to the finer yarns; and some sought to throw 
obstacles in the way of their competitors. It has 
been freely charged by many Southerners that New 
England manufacturers bore the expense of labor 
organizers in an unsuccessful attempt to unionize 
the Southern mill operatives. It has also been 
charged that the propaganda for legislation restrict- 
ing the hours of labor and the age of operatives in 
Southern mills was financed to some extent by New 


INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 93 


England manufacturers, and that the writers of 
the many lurid accounts purporting to describe 
conditions in Southern mills received pay from the 
same source. 

The system of paying for stock on the instalment 
plan permitted the construction of many mills for 
which capital could not have been raised otherwise 
and had also certain distinct social consequences. 
According to this plan, the subscriptions to the 
stock were made payable in weekly instalments of 
50 cents or $1.00 a share, thus requiring approxi- 
mately two or four years to complete payment. 
Those having money in hand might pay in full, less 
six per cent discount for the average time. Since 
almost or quite a year was usually necessary to 
build the mill and the necessary tenements for the 
hands, the instalments more than paid this item of 
expense. The weekly receipts and the payments 
in full were kept in a local bank, which also ex- 
pected future business and was therefore likely to 
be liberal when credit was demanded. Often the 
officers and directors of the bank were also per- 
sonally interested in the new enterprise. The 
machinery manufacturers gave long credit and 
often took stock in the mill. Commission houses 
which sold yarns and cloth also took stock with 


94 THE NEW SOUTH 


the expectation of controlling the marketing of 
the product. 

Many mills built on this plan were so profitable 
that they were able to pay for a considerable part 
of the machinery from the profits long before the 
last instalment was paid, and some even paid a 
dividend or two in addition. Such mills started 
operations with many things in their favor. The 
ownership was widely distributed, since it was not 
at all uncommon for a hundred thousand dollar 
mill to have a hundred or more stockholders, some 
of whom held only one or two shares. Further, 
since the amount of money paid in the immediate 
neighborhood for wages, fuel, and raw material was 
large, every one was disposed to aid the enterprise 
in every way possible. Town limits were often 
changed almost by common consent in order to 
throw a mill outside so that it would not be subject 
to town taxes. Where the state constitutions per- 
mitted, taxes on the mill were even remitted for 
a term of years. Where this could not be done, 
assessors were lenient and usually assessed mill 
property at much less than its real value. 

Not only did some Northern corporations build 
branch mills in the South, but a considerable 
amount of Northern capital was invested in mills 


INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 95 


under the management of Southern men. It is of 
course impossible to discover the residence of every 
stockholder, but enough is known to support the 
assertion that the proportion of Northern capital is 
comparatively small. The greater part of the in- 
vestment in Southern mills has come from the sav- 
ings of Southern people or has been earned by the 
mills themselves. Lately several successful mills 
have been bought by large department stores and 
mail-order houses, in order to supply them with 
goods either for the counter directly or else for 
the manufacture of sheets, pillowcases, underwear, 
and the like. Marshall Field and Company of 
Chicago, for example, own several mills in North 
Carolina. 

The mills of the South have continued to increase 
until they are now much more numerous than in 
the North. They are smaller in size, however, for 
in 1915 the number of spindles in the cotton-grow- 
ing States was 12,711,000 compared with 19,396,- 
000 in all other States. The consumption of cotton 
was nevertheless much greater in the South and 
amounted to 3,414,000 bales, compared with 2,770,- 
000 bales in the other States. This difference is 
explained by the fact that Southern mills gener- 
ally spin coarser yarn and may therefore easily 


96 THE NEW SOUTH 


consume twice or even three times as much cotton 
as mills of the same number of spindles engaged in 
spinning finer yarn. Some Southern mills, how- 
ever, spin very fine yarn from either Egyptian or 
sea-island cotton, but time is required to educate 
a considerable body of operatives competent to do 
the more delicate tasks, while less skillful workers 
are able to produce the coarser numbers. 

Southern mills have paid high dividends in the 
past and have also greatly enlarged their plants 
from their earnings. They had, years ago, several 
advantages, some of which persist to the present 
day. The cost of the raw material was less where 
a local supply of cotton could be obtained, since 
freight charges were saved by purchase in the 
neighborhood; land and buildings for plant and 
tenements cost less than in the North; fuel was 
cheaper; water power was often utilized, though 
sometimes this saving was offset by the cost of 
transportation; taxes were lower; the rate of 
wages was lower; there was little or no restriction 
of the conditions of employment; and there were 
comparatively few labor troubles. 

With the great growth of the industry, however, 
some of these early advantages have disappeared. 
Many mills can no longer depend upon the local 


INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 97 


supply of cotton, and the freight charge from the 
Lower South is as high as the rate by water to New 
England or even higher; the transportation of the 
finished product to Northern markets is an addi- 
tional expense; wages have risen with the growth 
of the industry and are approaching closely, if they 
have not reached, the rate per unit of product paid 
in other sections. The cost of fuel has increased, 
although in some localities the development of 
hydro-electric power has reduced this item. All the 
States have imposed restrictions upon the employ- 
ment of women and children in the mills, particu- 
larly at night. On the other hand, taxes remain 
lower, the cost of building is less, and strikes and 
other forms of industrial friction are still uncom- 
mon. When well managed, the Southern mills are 
still extremely profitable, but margin for error in 
management has become less. 

The Southern mills are chiefly to be found in 
four States, North Carolina, South Carolina, Geor- 
gia, and Alabama, and in the hill country of these 
States, though a few large mills are situated in 
the lowlands. North Carolina, with over three 
hundred mills, has more than any other State, 
North or South, and consumes more cotton than 
any other Southern State — over a million bales. 


4 


98 THE NEW SOUTH 


South Carolina, however, has more spindles, the 
average size of its mills is larger, and it spins more 
fine varn. North Carolina is second only to Massa- 
chusetts in the value of its cotton products, South 
Carolina comes third, Georgia fourth, and Alabama 
eighth. Virginia and Tennessee are lower on the 
list. In quantity of cotton consumed, the cotton 
growing States passed all others in 1905; and in 
1916 the consumption was twenty-five per cent 
greater, in spite of the fact that New England had 
been increasing her spindles. Some Southern mills 
are built in cities, but usually they are in the smaller 
towns and in little villages which have grown up 
around the mills and owe their existence to them. 
There is some localization of industry: a very large 
number of mills, for instance, may be found in a 
radius of one hundred miles from Charlotte, North 
Carolina, and one North Carolina county has more 
than fifty mills, though the total number of spin- 
dles in that county is not much greater than in 
some single New England establishment. 

In the allied knitting industry the production 
of the South is increasing in importance. North 
Carolina led the South in 1914, with Tennessee, 
Georgia, Virginia, following in the order named. 
Though most of the establishments are small, some 


INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 99 


are important and are establishing a wide reputa- 
tion for their product. Generally they are situ- 
ated in the towns where cotton mills have already 
been located. 

The textile industry, though it is the most im- 
portant, is not the only great industrial enterprise 
in the New South. Two others, both in a way the 
by-products of cotton, deserve attention. Only a 
few years ago cotton seed was considered a nui- 
sance. A small quantity was fed to stock; a some- 
what larger quantity was composted with stable 
manure and used for fertilizer; but the greater part 
was left to rot or was even dumped into the streams 
which ran the gins. Since the discovery of the 
value of cottonseed products, the industry has 
grown rapidly. The oil is now used in cooking, is 
mixed with olive oil, is sold pure for salad oil, and 
is an important constituent of oleomargarine, lard 
substitutes, and soap, to name only a few of the 
uses to which it is put. The cake, or meal from 
which the oil has been pressed, is rich in nitrogen 
and is therefore valuable as fertilizer; it is also a 
standard food for cattle, and tentative experiments 
with it have even been made as a food for human 
beings. The hulls have also considerable value as 
cattle food, and from them are obtained annually 


100 THE NEW SOUTH 


nearly a million bales of “‘linters,” that is, short 
fibers of cotton which escaped the gin. Since the 
seed is bulky and the cost of transportation is cor- 
respondingly high, there are many small cotton- 
seed oil mills rather than a few large ones. Texas 
is the leader in this industry, with Georgia next, 
though oil mills are to be found in all the cotton 
States, and the value of the seed adds considerably 
to the income of every cotton grower. In 1914 the 
value of cottonseed products was $212,000,000. 

The industry of making fertilizer depends largely 
upon cottonseed meal. More than a hundred oil 
mills have fertilizer departments. The phosphate 
deposits of the South Atlantic States are also im- 
portant, and the fertilizer industry is showing more 
and more a tendency to become sectional. Georgia 
easily leads, Maryland is second, and no Northern 
State ranks higher than seventh. 

From the standpoint of values lumbering is a 
more important industry than the manufacture of 
fertilizers. In this respect Louisiana is the second 
State in value of products, and the industry is im- 
portant in Arkansas, Mississippi, and North Caro- 
lina. The South furnishes nearly half of the lum- 
ber produced in the United States. This industry 
is, of course, only one step from the raw material. 


INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 101 


The manufacture of wood into finished articles is, 
however, increasing in some of the Southern States. 
The vehicle industry is considerable, and the same 
may be said of agricultural machinery, railway and 
street cars, and coffins. North Carolina especially is 
taking rank in the manufacture of furniture, most 
of it cheap but some of it of high grade. So far, am- 
bition has in few cases gone beyond utilization of 
the native woods, some of which are surprisingly 
beautiful. Many small establishments in different 
States make such special products as spokes, shuttle 
blocks, pails, broom handles, containers for fruits 
and vegetables, and the like, but the total value of 
these products is small compared with the value of 
the crude lumber which is sent out of the South. 
The iron industry is important chiefly in Ala- 
bama, of the purely Southern States. This State 
is fourth in the product of its blast furnaces but 
supplied in 1914 only a little more than six per cent 
of the total for the United States. Virginia, Ten- 
nessee, and West Virginia produce appreciable 
quantities of pig iron; no Southern State plays a 
really important part in the steel industry, though 
Maryland, Alabama, and West Virginia are all 
represented. Birmingham, Alabama, is the center 
of steel manufacture and has been called the Pitts- 


102 THE NEW SOUTH 


burgh of the South, but though the industry has 
grown rapidly in Birmingham, it has also grown in 
Pittsburgh, and the Southern city is gaining very 
slowly. There are great beds of bituminous coal in 
the South, but only in West Virginia and Alabama 
is the production really important, though Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee, and Virginia produce appreciable 
quantities. 

In the total value of the products of mines of all 
sorts, West Virginia and Oklahoma are among the 
leaders, owing to their iron, coal, and petroleum 
output. Other Southern States follow in the rear. 
Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, 
Florida, and Louisiana all have a mineral output 
which is large in the aggregate but a small part of 
the total. The sulphur mines of Louisiana are 
growing increasingly important. North Carolina 
produces a little of almost everything, but its min- 
eral production, except of mica, is not important. 
In this State large aluminum works have been con- 
structed and the quantity of precious and semi- 
precious stones found there is a large part of the 
production for the United States. 

The tobacco industry is growing rapidly in the 
South. There have always been small establish- 
ments for the manufacture of tobacco, and many 


INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 103 


of these during the last three decades have grown 
to large proportions. New establishments have 
been opened, some of which are among the largest 
in the world. The development of the American 
Tobacco Company and its affiliated and subsidiary 
organizations has greatly reduced the number of 
separate establishments. Many were bought by 
the combination; their brands were transferred to 
another factory; and the original establishments 
were closed as uneconomical. Many other small 
factories, feeling or fearing the competition, closed 
voluntarily. But the total production of tobacco 
has steadily increased. Plug and smoking tobacco 
are largely confined to the Upper South. North 
Carolina easily leads, while Virginia, Kentucky, 
and Missouri (if it be classed as a Southern State) 
also have factories which are known all over the 
world. Richmond, St. Louis, Louisville, and New 
Orleans, and Winston-Salem and Durham in North 
Carolina are the cities which lead in this industry. 
Winston-Salem probably now makes more plug, 
and Durham more smoking tobacco, than any 
other cities in the United States, and the cigarette 
production of the former is increasing enormously. 
Some factories supply export trade almost exclu- 
sively. There has been little development of the 


104 THE NEW SOUTH 


fine cigar industry except in Louisiana and Florida, 
though in all cities of the Lower South there are 
local establishments for the manufacture of cigars 
from Cuban leaf. Richmond is a center for the 
manufacture of domestic cigars and cheroots and 
has one mammoth establishment. 

Twenty years or thirty years ago scattered over 
the South there were thousands of small grist mills 
which ground the farmer’s wheat or corn between 
stones in the old-fashioned way. These are being 
superseded by roller mills, some of them quite 
large, which handle all the local wheat and even 
import some from the West. However, as the 
annual production of wheat in the South has de- 
creased rather than increased since 1880, it is ob- 
vious that the industry has changed in form rather 
than increased in importance. 

There are other less important manufacturing 
enterprises in the South. The census shows about 
two hundred and fifty distinct industries pursued 
to a greater or less extent. Maryland ranked four- 
teenth in the total value of manufactured prod- 
ucts in 1914. Only seven Southern States were 
found in the first twenty-five, while Minnesota, 
which is generally considered an agricultural 
State, ranked higher in manufactures than any of 


INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 105 


the Southern group in 1914. The next census will 
undoubtedly give some Southern States high rank, 
though the section as a whole is not yet industrial. 
The manufacturing output is increasing with mar- 
velous rapidity, but it is increasing in other sec- 
tions of the country as well. Although the South 
was credited in 1914 with an increase of nearly 72 
per cent in the value of its products during the 
decade, its proportion of the total value of products 
in the United States as a whole increased only 
from 12.8 per cent in 1904 to 13.1 per cent in 1914. 
The section is still far from equaling or surpassing 
other sections except in the manufacture of textiles. 


CHAPTER VI 
LABOR CONDITIONS 


Tue laborer employed in the manufacturing en- 
terprises of the South, whether white or black, 
is native born and Southern born. Sporadic ef- 
forts to import industrial workers from Europe 
have not been successful and there has been no 
considerable influx of workers from other sections 
of the Union. A few skilled workers have come, 
but the rank and file in all the factories and shops 
were born in the State in which they work or in a 
neighboring State. Speaking broadly, those deal- 
ing with complicated machines are white, while 
those engaged in simpler processes are white or 
black. We find, therefore, a preponderance of 
whites in the textile industries and in the shops pro- 
ducing articles from wood and iron, while the blacks 
are found in the lumber industry, in the tobacco 
factories, in the mines, and at the blast furnaces. 


There are some skilled workmen among the negroes, 
106 


LABOR CONDITIONS 107 


especially in tobacco, but generally they furnish the 
unskilled labor. 

The textile industry employs the greatest num- 
ber of operatives, or at least concentrates them 
more. From the farms or the mountain coves, or 
only one generation removed from that environ- 
ment, they have been drawn to the mills by various 
motives. The South is still sparsely settled, and 
the life of the tenant farmer or the small landowner 
and his family is often lonely. Until recently, roads 
were almost universally bad, especially in winter, 
and a visit to town or even to a neighbor was no 
small undertaking. Attendance at the country 
church, which sometimes has services only once a 
month, or a trip to the country store on Saturday 
afternoon with an occasional visit to the county- 
seat furnish almost the only opportunity for so- 
cial intercourse. Work in a cotton mill promised 
not merely fair wages but what was coveted even 
more — companionship. 

During the period of most rapid growth in the 
textile industry, agriculture, or at least agriculture 
as practiced by this class, was unprofitable. Dur- 
ing the decade from 1890 to 1900 the price of all 
kinds of farm produce was exceedingly low, and the 
returns in money were very small. Even though 


108 THE NEW SOUTH 


a farmer more farsighted than the average did 
produce the greater part of his food on the farm, 
his “money crop” — cotton or tobacco — hardly 
brought the cost of production. The late D. A. 
Tompkins, of Charlotte, North Carolina, a close 
student of cotton, came to the conclusion, about 
1910, that cotton had been produced at a loss in 
the South considered as a whole, at least since the 
Civil War. Many farmers, however, were in a vi- 
cious economic circle and could not escape. If 
they had bought supplies at the country store at 
inflated prices, the crops sometimes were insuffi- 
cient to pay the store accounts, and the balance was 
charged against the next year’s crop. Men who 
did not go heavily into debt often handled less than 
$200 in cash in a year, and others found difficulty 
in obtaining money even for their small taxes. To 
such men the stories of $15 to $25 earned at a mill 
by a single family in a week seemed almost fabulous. 
The whole family worked on the farm, as farmers’ 
families have always done, and it seemed the natu- 
ral thing that, in making a change, all should work 
in the mill. 

To those families moved by loneliness and those 
other families driven by an honest ambition to 
better their economic condition were added the 


LABOR CONDITIONS 109 


families of the incapable, the shiftless, the disabled, 
and the widowed. In a few cases men came to 
the mills deliberately intending to exploit their 
children, to live a life of ease upon their earnings. 
There were places for the younger members of all 
these families, but a man with hands calloused and 
muscles stiffened by the usual round of farm work 
could seldom learn a new trade after the age of 
forty, no matter how willing. Often a cotton mill 
is the only industrial enterprise in the village, and 
the number of common laborers needed is limited. 
Too many of the fathers who had come to the vil- 
lage intending themselves to work gradually sank 
into the parasite class and sat around the village 
store while their children worked. 

During the early expansion of the industry, the 
wages paid were low compared with New England 
standards, but they were sufficient to draw the 
people from the farms and to hold them at the 
mills. In considering the wages paid in Southern 
mills, this fact must never be forgotten. There 
was always an abundance of land to which the mill 
people could return at will and wrest some sort of 
living from the soil. For them to go back to the 
land was not a venture full of unknown hazards. 
They had been born on the land and even yet are 


110 THE NEW SOUTH 


usually only one generation removed, and the land 
cries out for tenants and laborers. It must also be 
remembered that though the wages measured in 
money were low, the cost of living was likewise low. 
Rents were trifling, if indeed the tenements were 
not occupied free; the cost of fuel and food was 
low; and many expenses necessary in New England 
were superfluous in the South. 

With the increasing number of mills and the 
rising price of agricultural products, the supply 
of industrial laborers became less abundant, and 
higher wages have been necessary to draw recruits 
from the farms until at present the rate of wages 
approaches that of New England. The purchasing 
power is probably greater for, while the cost of liv- 
ing has greatly increased in the South, it is still 
lower than in other parts of the country. This 
does not mean that the average Southern wage is 
equal to the New England average. While there 
is a growing body of highly skilled operatives in the 
South, the rapid growth of the industry has made 
necessary the employment of an overwhelming- 
ly large number of untrained or partially trained 
operatives, who cannot tend so many spindles or 
looms as the New England operatives. Again, 
much yarn in the North is spun upon mules, while 


LABOR CONDITIONS 1 


in the South these machines are uncommon. For 
certain purposes, this soft but fine and even yarn is 
indispensable. Only strong, highly skilled opera- 
tives, usually men, can tend these machines. The 
earnings of such specialists cannot fairly be com- 
pared with the amounts received by ordinary girl 
spinners on ring frames. Again the weekly wage of 
an expert weaver upon fancy cloth cannot justly be 
compared with that of a Southern operative upon 
plain goods. Where the work is comparable, how- 
ever, the rates per unit of product in North and 
South are not far apart. 

From the standpoint of the employer it may be 
possible that the wages per unit of product are 
higher in some Southern mills than in some New 
England establishments. In the case of an expen- 
sive machine, an operative who gets from it only 
sixty to seventy-five per cent of its possible pro- 
duction may receive higher wages, or what amounts 
to the same thing, may produce at a higher cost per 
unit than a more highly paid individual who more 
nearly approaches the theoretical maximum pro- 
duction of the machine. There is much expensive 
machinery in the Southern mills. In fact, on the 
whole, the machinery for the work in hand is better 
than in New England, because it is newer. The 


112 THE NEW SOUTH 


recently built Southern mills have been equipped 
with all the latest machinery, while many of the 
older Northern mills have not felt able to scrap 
machines which, though antiquated, were still run- 
ning well. However, the advantage in having a 
better machine is not fully realized if it is not run 
to its full capacity. Both spinning frames and 
looms have generally been run at a somewhat 
slower speed in the South than in the North. This 
fact was noted by that careful English observer, 
T. M. Young: “Whether the cost per unit of ef- 
ficiency is greater in the South than in the North 
is hard to say. But for the automatic loom, the 
North would, I think, have the advantage. Per- 
haps the truth is that in some parts of the South 
where the industry has been longest established 
and a generation has been trained to the work, 
Southern labor is actually as well as nominally 
cheaper than Northern; whilst in other districts, 
where many mills have sprung up all at once 
amongst a sparse rural population, wholly un- 
trained, the Southern labor at present procur- 
able is really dearer than the Northern.” This 
does not mean that Southern labor is perma- 
nently inferior; but a highly skilled body of 


« T. M. Young, The American Cotton Industry, p. 113. 


LABOR CONDITIONS 113 


operatives requires years for its development. 
In the beginning there were no restrictions upon 
hours of work, age, or sex of operatives, or condi- 
tions of employment. Every mill was a law unto 
itself. Hours were long, often seventy-two and in 
a few cases seventy-five a week. Wages were often 
paid in scrip good at the company store but re- 
deemable in cash only at infrequent intervals, if 
indeed any were then presented. Yet, if the prices 
at the store were sometimes exorbitant, they were 
likely to be less than the operatives had been ac- 
customed to pay when buying on credit while liv- 
ing on the farms. The moral conditions at some of 
these mills were also bad, since the least desirable ele- 
ment of the rural population was the first to go to 
the mills. Such conditions, however, were not uni- 
versal. Some of the industrial communities were 
clean and self-respecting, but conditions depended 
largely upon the individual in charge of the mill. 
As the years went on and more and more mills 
were built, the demand for operatives increased. 
‘fo draw them from the farms, it was necessary to 
improve living conditions in the mill villages and 
to increase wages. Today the mill communities 
are generally clean, and care is taken to exclude 
immoral individuals. Payment of wages in cash 


9 


114 THE NEW SOUTH 


became therule. The company store persisted, but 
chiefly as a matter of convenience to the operatives; 
and in prices it met and often cut below those 
charged in other stores in the vicinity. The hours 
of labor were reduced gradually. Seventy-two be- 
came the maximum, but most mills voluntarily ran 
sixty-nine or even sixty-six. The employment of 
children continued, though some individual em- 
ployers reduced it as much as possible without seri- 
ously crippling their forces. This was a real dan- 
ger so long as there were no legal restrictions on 
child labor. Children worked upon the farm as 
children have done since farming began, and the 
average farmer who moved to the mill was unable 
to see the difference between working on the farm 
and working in the mill. In fact, to his mind, 
work in the mill seemed easier than exposure on the 
farm to the summer sun and the winter cold. 

Men who were not conscious of deliberately ex- 
ploiting their children urged the manager of the 
mill to employ a child of twelve or even ten. If 
the manager refused, he was threatened with the 
loss of the whole family. A family containing good 
operatives could always find employment else- 
where, and perhaps the manager of another mill 
would not be so scrupulous. So the children went 


LABOR CONDITIONS 115 


into the mill and often stayed there. If illiterate 
when they entered, they remained illiterate. The 
number of young children, however, was always 
exaggerated by the muckrakers, though unques- 
tionably several hundred children ten to twelve 
years old, and possibly a few younger, were em- 
ployed yearsago. The nature of the work permits 
the employment of operatives under sixteen only 
in the spinning room; the girls, many of them older 
than sixteen, mend the broken ends of the yarn at 
the spinning frames, and the boys remove the full 
bobbins and fix empty ones in their stead. The 
possible percentage of workers under sixteen in a 
spinning mili varies from thirty-five to forty-five. 
In a mill which weaves the yarn into cloth, the 
percentage is greatly reduced, as practically no 
one under sixteen can be profitably employed in a 
weaving room. 

Public sentiment against the employment of 
children became aroused only slowly. Crusades 
against such industrial customs are usually led by 
organized labor, by professional philanthropists, 
by sentimentalists, and by socialistic agitators. 
The mill operatives of the South have shown little 
disposition to organize themselves and, in fact, have 
protested against interference with their right of 


116 THE NEW SOUTH 


contract. The South is only just becoming rich 
enough to support professional philanthropists, 
and an outlet for sentimentality has been found in 
other directions. There has been as yet too little 
disproportion of wealth among the Southern whites 
to excite acute jealousy on this ground alone, and 
the operatives have earned much more money in 
the mills than was possible on the farms. In com- 
paratively few cases does one man, or one family, 
own a controlling interest in a mill. The owner- 
ship is usually scattered in small holdings, and there 
is seldom a Croesus to excite envy. This wide 
ownership has had its effect upon the general atti- 
tude of the more influential citizens and hindered 
the development of active disapproval. 

The chief reason for the inertia in labor matters, 
however, has been the fact that the South has 
thought, and to a large extent still thinks, in terms 
of agriculture. It has not yet developed an in- 
dustrial philosophy. Agriculture is individualistic, 
and Thomas Jefferson’s ideas upon the functions 
and limitations of government still have influence. 
Regulation of agricultural labor would seem ab- 
surd, and the difference between a family, with or 
without hired help, working in comparative freedom 
on a farm, and scores cf individuals working at the 


LABOR CONDITIONS 117 


same tasks, day after day, under more or less ten- 
sion was slow to take shape in the popular conscious- 
ness. It was obvious that the children were not 
actually physically abused; almost unanimously 
they preferred work to school, just as the city boy 
does today; and the children themselves opposed 
most strongly any proposed return to the farm. 
The task of the reformers — for in every State 
there were earnest men and women who saw the 
evils of unrestricted child labor — was difficult. 
It was the same battle which had been fought in 
England and later in New England, when their 
textile industries were passing through the same 
stage of development. Every student of indus- 
trial history realizes that conditions in the South 
were neither so hard nor were the hours so long as 
they had been in England and New England. 

The attempt to apply pressure from without had 
little influence. Indeed it is possible that the re- 
sentment occasioned by the exaggerated stories of 
conditions really hindered the progress of restric- 
tive legislation, just as the bitter denunciation of 
the Southern attitude toward the negro has in- 
creased conservatism. Every one knew that the 
pitiful stories of abuse or oppression were untrue. 
No class of laborers anywhere is more independent 


118 THE NEW SOUTH 


than Southern mill operatives. It has been a long 
while since a family of even semi-efficient operatives 
has been compelled to ask for employment. Run- 
ners for other mills, upon the slightest hint of dis- 
affection, are quick to seek them out and even to 
advance the expense of moving and money to pay 
any debts. It is well known that families move 
for the slightest reason or for no reason at all ex- 
cept a vague unrest. Self-interest, if nothing else, 
would restrain an overseer from an act which 
might send a whole family or perhaps half a dozen 
families from his mill. 

Gradually the States imposed limitations upon 
age of employment, hours of labor, and night work 
for women and children, which practically meant 
limiting or abolishing night work altogether. These 
restrictions were slight at first, and the provisions 
for their enforcement were inadequate, but suc- 
ceeding legislatures increased them. Mild com- 
pulsory attendance laws kept some of the children 
in school and out of the mill. A more or less sub- 
stantial body of labor legislation was gradually 
growing up, when state regulation was stopped by 
the action of the Federal Government. Since the 
first Federal Child Labor Act was declared uncon- 
stitutional, several States have strengthened laws 


LABOR CONDITIONS 119 


previously existing, and have further reduced the 
hours of labor. 

Until comparatively recently whatever provision 
was made for the social betterment of the opera- 
tives depended upon the active manager of the 
particular mill. Some assumed a patriarchal atti- 
tude and attempted to provide those things which 
they thought the operatives should have. Others 
took little or no responsibility, except perhaps to 
make a contribution to all the churches represented 
in the community. This practice is almost uni- 
versal, and if the term of the public school is short, 
it is usually extended by a contribution from the 
mill treasury. During recent years much more 
has been done. Partly from an awakening sense 
of social responsibility and partly from a realiza- 
tion that it is good business to do so, the bigger 
mills have made large expenditures to improve the 
condition of their operatives. They have pro- 
vided reading rooms and libraries, have opened 
many recreation rooms and playgrounds, and have 
furnished other facilities for entertainment. Some 
of the mills have athletic fields, and a few support 
semi-professional baseball teams. At some mills 
community buildings have been erected, which 
sometimes contain, in addition to public rooms, 


120 THE NEW SOUTH 


baths, and a swimming pool, an office for a visit- 
ing nurse and rooms which an adviser in domestic 
science may use for demonstration. The older 
women are hard to teach, but not a few of the 
girls take am interest in the work. Nothing is 
more needed than instruction in domestic science. 
The operatives spend a large proportion of their 
income upon food — for the rent they pay is tri- 
fling — but the items are not always well chosen, 
and the cooking is often bad. To the monoto- 
nous dietary to which they were accustomed on 
the farms they add many luxuries to be had in 
the mill town, but these are often ruined by im- 
proper preparation. Owing to this lack of domes- 
tic skill many operatives apparently suffer from 
malnutrition, though they spend more than enough 
money to supply an abundance of nourishing food. 

Not many years ago the improvidence of the — 
mill operatives was proverbial. Wages were gener- 
ally spent as fast as they were earned, and often 
extravagantly. Little attempt was made to culti- 
vate gardens or to make yards attractive, with the 
result that a factory village with its monotonous 
rows of unkempt houses was a depressing sight. 
The “factory people,”” many of whom had been. 
nomad tenant farmers seldom living long in the 


LABOR CONDITIONS 121 


same place, had never thought of attempting to 
beautify their surroundings, and the immediate 
neighborhood of the mill to which they moved 
was often bare and unlovely and afforded little en- 
couragement to beauty. 

The improvident family is still common, and 
many ugly mill villages yet exist, but one who has 
watched the development of the cotton industry 
in the South for twenty-five years has seen great 
changes in these respects. Thousands of families 
are saving money today. Some buy homes; others 
set up one member of the family in a small business; 
and a few buy farms. More than seventy-five 
families have left one mill village during the last 
ten years to buy farms with their savings, but this 
instance is rather unusual; comparatively few fami- 
lies return to the land. Efforts have been made to 
develop a community spirit, and the results are 
perceptible. Many mill villages are now really 
‘attractive. Scores of mills have had their grounds 
laid out by a landscape architect, and a mill covered 
with ivy and surrounded by well-kept lawns and 
flower beds is no longer exceptional. In scores of mill 
communities annual prizes are offered for the best 
vegetable garden, the most attractive premises, and 
the best kept premises from a sanitary standpoint. 


122 THE NEW SOUTH 


The Southern operative is too close to the soil to 
be either socialistic in his views or collectivistic in 
his attitude. The labor agitator has found sterile 
soil for his propaganda. Yet signs of a dawning 
class consciousness are appearing. As always, the 
first manifestation is opposition to the dominant 
political party or faction. This has not yet, how- 
ever, been translated into any considerable number 
of Republican votes, except in North Carolina. In 
the other States, the votes of the factory operatives 
seem to be cast in something of a block, in the pri- 
mary elections. The demagogic Blease is said to 
have found much of his support in South Carolina 
in the factory villages. 

Employees in other industries show so much di- 
versity that few general statements can be made 
concerning them. The workers in the furniture 
factories — who are chiefly men, as few women or 
children can be employed in this industry — are 
few in number compared with the male employees 
in the cotton mills and, except in the case of a few 
towns, can hardly be discussed as a group at all. 
Both whites and negroes are employed, but the 
white man is usually in the responsible post, 
though a few negroes tend important machines. 
The general average of education and intelligence 


LABOR CONDITIONS 123 


among the whites is higher here than in the cotton 
mills, and wages are likewise higher. Conditions 
in other establishments making articles of wood 
are practically the same. 

Lumber mills range from a small neighborhood 
sawmill with a handful of employees to the great 
organizations which push railroads into the deep 
woods and strip a mountain side or devastate 
the lowlands. Such organizations require a great 
number of laborers, whom they usually feed and to 
whom they issue from a “commissary” various 
necessary articles which are charged against the 
men’s wages. As the work is hard, it has not been 
at all uncommon for employees who had received 
large advances to decamp. The companies, how- 
ever, took advantage of various laws similar to 
those mentioned in the chapter on agriculture to 
have these deserters arrested and to have them, 
when convicted, “hired out” to the very company 
or employer from whom they had fled. Conditions 
resulting from this practice in some of the States 
of the Lower South became so scandalous about 
1905 that numerous individuals were tried in the 
courts and were convicted of holding employees in 
a state of peonage. In 1911 the Supreme Court 
of the United States declared unconstitutional the 


124 THE NEW SOUTH 


law of Alabama regarding contract of service." 
This law regarded the nonfulfillment of a contract 
on which an advance had been made as prima facie 
evidence of intent to defraud and thus gave em- 
ployers immense power over their employees. Con- 
ditions have therefore undoubtedly improved since 
the peonage trials, but the lumber industry is one 
in which the labor has apparently everywhere been 
casual, migratory, and lawless. 

The manufacture of tobacco shows as much di- 
versity of labor conditions as the lumber industry. 
There are small establishments with little machin- 
ery which manufacture plug and smoking tobacco 
and are open only a few months in the year, as well 
as those which cover half a dozen city blocks. In 
the smaller factories the majority of the laborers 
are black, but in the larger establishments both ne- 
groes and whites are employed. Sometimes they 
do the same sort of work on opposite sides of the 
sameroom. In some departments negro and white 
men work side by side, while in others only whites 
or only negroes are found. The more complicated 
machines are usually tended by whites, and the 
fillmg and inspection of containers is ordinarily 
done by white girls, who are also found in large 

" Bailey vs. Alabama, 219 U. S., 219. . 


LABOR CONDITIONS 125 


numbers in the cigarette factories. Not many 
years ago the tobacco industry was supposed to 
belong to the negro, but with the introduction 
of machinery he has lost his monopoly, though 
on account of the expansion of the industry the 
total number of negroes employed is greater than 
ever before. 

In the smaller factories labor is usually paid by 
the day, but in the larger establishments every 
operation possible is on a piecework basis. These 
operations are so related in a series that a slacker 
feels the displeasure of those who follow him and 
depend upon him for a supply of material. In the 
smaller factories the work is regarded somewhat in 
the light of a summer holiday, as the tasks are 
simple and the operatives talk and sing at their 
work. This social element largely disappears, how- 
ever, with the introduction of machinery. As 
might be expected in a labor force composed of 
men, women, and children, both white and black, 
with some engaged in manual labor and others tend- 
ing complicated machines, there is little solidarity. 
An organized strike including any large percentage 
of the force in a tobacco factory is a practical im- 
possibility. Those engaged in a particular process 
may strike and in consequence tie up the processes 


126 THE NEW SOUTH 


depending upon them, but any sort of industrial 
friction is uncommon. The general level of wages 
has been steadily rising, and among the negroes 
the tobacco workers are the aristocrats of the 
wage earners and are content with their situation. 
Since the larger factories are almost invariably in 
the cities, the homes of the workers are scattered 
and not collected in communities as around the 
cotton mills. 

Experiments have been made in employing ne- 
gro operatives in the textile industry, so far with 
little success, though the capacity of the negro 
for such employment has not yet been disproved. 
Though several cotton mills which made the experi- 
ment failed, in every case there were difficulties 
which might have caused a similar failure even 
with white operatives. Negroes have been em- 
ployed successfully in some hosiery mills and in a 
few small silk mills. The increasing scarcity of 
labor, especially during the Great War, has led to 
the substitution of negroes for whites in a number 
of knitting mills. Some successful establishments 
are conducted with negro labor but the labor force 
is either all white or all black except that white 
overseers are always, or nearly always employed. 

An important hindrance in the way of the success 


LABOR CONDITIONS 127 


of negroes in these occupations is their charac- 
teristic dislike of regularity and punctuality. As 
the negro has acquired these virtues to some extent 
at least in the tobacco industry, there seems to be 
no reason to suppose that in time he may not suc- 
ceed also in textiles, in which the work is not more 
difficult than in other tasks of which negroes have 
proved themselves capable. So far the whites 
have not resented the occasional introduction of 
black operatives into the textile industry. If the 
negroes become firmly established while the de- 
mand for operatives continues to be greater than 
the supply, race friction on this account is unlikely, 
but if they are introduced in the future as strike- 
breakers, trouble is sure to arise. In the mines, 
blast furnaces, oil mills, and fertilizer factories 
the negroes do the hardest and most unpleasant 
tasks, work which in the North is done by recent 
immigrants. 

The negroes are almost entirely unorganized and 
are likely to remainsoforalongtime. Few negroes 
accumulate funds enough to indulge in the luxury 
of a strike, and they have shown little tendency to 
organize or support unions. However, their de- 
votion to their lodges shows the loyalty of which 
they are capable, and their future organization is 


128 THE NEW SOUTH 


not beyond the range of possibility. Generally 
the South has afforded little encouragement to or- 
ganized labor. Even the white workers, except in 
the cities and in a few skilled trades, have shown 
until recently little tendency to organize. In the 
towns and villages they are not sharply differenti- 
ated from the other elements of the population. 
They look upon themselves as citizens rather than 
as members of the laboring class. Exceptinafew of 
the larger towns one does not hear of “‘class con- 
flict”’; and the “‘labor vote,” when by any chance 
a Socialist or a labor candidate is nominated, is 
not large enough to be a factor in the result. 

During 1918 and 1919, however, renewed efforts 
to organize Southern labor met with some success 
particularly in textile and woodworking establish- 
ments, though the tobacco industry and public 
utilities were likewise affected. The efforts of 
employers to prevent the formation of unions led 
to lockouts and strikes during which there was 
considerable disorder and some bloodshed. Com- 
munities which had known of such disputes only 
from hearsay stood amazed. The workers gener- 
ally gained recognition of their right to organize, 
and their success may mean greater industrial 
friction in the future. 


CHAPTER VII 
THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 


For a century, the presence of the negro in the 
United States has divided the nation. Though the 
Civil War finally decided some questions about his 
status, others affecting his place in the social order 
remained unsettled; new controversies have arisen; 
and no immediate agreement is in sight. Interest 
in the later phases of the race question has found 
expression in scores of books, hundreds of articles, 
thousands of orations and addresses, and un- 
limited private discussions which have generally 
produced more heat than light. The question has 
kept different sections of the country apart and has 
created bitterness which will long endure. More- 
over, this discussion about ten million people has 
produced an effect upon them, and the negroes are 
beginning to feel that they constitute a problem. 
Differing attitudes toward the negro general- 


ly arise from fundamentally different postulates. 
9 129 


130 THE NEW SOUTH 


Many Northerners start with the assumption that 
the negro is a black Saxon and argue that his faults 
and deficiencies arise from the oppression he has en- 
dured. At the other extreme are those who hold 
that the negro is fundamentally different from the 
white man and inferior to him: and some go so far 
as to say that he is incapable of development. 
Fifty years ago General John Pope predicted, with 
a Saving reservation, that the negroes of Georgia 
would soon surpass the whites in education, cul- 
ture, and wealth. Other predictions, similar in 
tone, were common in the reports of various phil- 
anthropic associations. Obviously these prophe- 
cies have not been fulfilled; but it is just as evident 
that the predictions that the former slaves would 
relapse into barbarism and starve have also not 
been realized. Practically every prophecy or gen- 
eralization made before 1890 with regard to the 
future of the negro has been discredited by the 
events of the passing years. 

It is perhaps worth while to take stock of what 
this race has accomplished in America during some- 
thing more than fifty years of freedom. The negro 
has lived beside the white man and has increased 
in numbers, though at a somewhat slower rate than 
the white. The census of 1870 was inaccurate and 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 131 


incomplete in the South, and in consequence the 
census of 1880 seemed to show a phenomenal in- 
crease in the negro population. Upon this sup- 
posed increase was based the theory that the South 
would soon be overwhelmingly black. From the 
historical standpoint, Albion W. Tourgée’s Appeal 
to Caesar is interesting as a perfect example of this 
type of deduction, for he could see only a black 
South. The three censuses taken since 1880 de- 
finitely establish the fact that the net increase of 
negro population is smaller than that of the white. 
This seems to have been true at every census since 
1810, and the proportion of negroes to the total 
population of the nation grows steadily, though 
slowly, smaller. * 


: Though the negro increase is smaller than the white, nevertheless 
the 4,441,930 negroes in 1860 had increased to 9,827,763 in 1910. Of 
this number 8,749,427 lived in the Southern States, and 1,078,336 in 
the Northern. That is to say, 89 per cent of the negroes lived in the 
three divisions classed as Southern, 10.5 per cent in the four divisions 
classed as Northern and 0.5 per cent in the two Western divisions. 
Since 1790 the center of negro population has been moving toward the 
Southwest and has now reached northeast Alabama. Migration to 
the North and West has been considerable since emancipation. In 
1910 there were 415,533 negroes born in the South but living in the 
North, and, owing to this migration, the percentage of increase of 
negro population outside the South has been larger than the average. 
Between 1900 and 1910 the increase in the New England States was 
12.2 per cent and in the East North Central 16.7 per cent. The 
mountain divisions show a large percentage of increase, but as there 
were in both of them together less than 51,000 negroes, comprising less 


132 THE NEW SOUTH 


Between 1900 and 1910, the native white popu- 
lation increased 20.9 per cent while the negro pop- 
ulation increased only 11.2 per cent. This smaller 
increase in the later decade is due partly to negro 
migration to the cities. It is believed that among 
the city negroes, particularly in the North, the 
death rate is higher than the birth rate. The ex- 
cessive death rate results largely from crowded and 
unsanitary quarters. 

Since 1910, the migration of negroes to the North 
has been larger than before. The increase was not 
unusual, however, until the beginning of the Great 
War. Up to that time the majority had been en- 
gaged in domestic and personal service, but with 
the practical cessation of immigration from Europe, 
a considerable number of negro laborers moved to 
the Northern States. Indeed, in some Southern 
communities the movement almost reached the pro- 
portions of an exodus. Until the next census there 
is no means of estimating with any approach to 
accuracy the extent of this migration. The truth 
is probably somewhere in between the published 


than 1 per cent of the population, it is evident that the negro is not a 
serious factor in the West. The negroes form an insignificant com- 
ponent (less than 5 per cent) of the population of any Northern State. 
though in some Northern cities the number of negroes is considerable. 
See Abstract of the Thirteenth Census of the United States, p. 78. 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 133 


estimates which range from 300,000 to 1,000,000. 
The investigations of the United States Department 
of Labor indicate the smaller number. 

The motives for this northward migration are va- 
rious. The offer of higher wages is the most impor- 
tant. The desire to get for their children great- 
er educational advantages than are offered in the 
South is also impelling. The belief that race prej- 
udice is less strong in the North is another in- 
ducement to leave the South, for “Jim Crow” cars 
and political disfranchisement have irritated many. 
Finally the dread of lynch law may be mentioned 
as a motive for migration, though its actual impor- 
tance may be doubted. Not all the negroes who 
have moved to the North have remained there. 
Many do not allow for the higher cost of food and 
shelter in their new home, and these demands upon 
the higher wages leave a smaller margin than was 
expected. Others find the climate too severe, 
while still others are unable or unwilling to work 
regularly at the speed demanded. 

The overwhelming mass of the negro population 
in the South, and therefore in the nation, is still 
rural, though among them, as among the whites, 

the drift toward the cities is marked. The chief 
occupations are agriculture, general jobbing not 


134 THE NEW SOUTH 


requiring skilled labor, and domestic service, al- 
though there is a scattered representation of ne- 
groes in almost every trade, business, and _profes- 
sion. In 1865 the amount of property held by 
negroes was small. A few free negroes were upon 
the tax-books, and former masters sometimes made 
gifts of property to favorites among the liberated 
slaves, but the whole amount was trifling com- 
pared with the total number of negroes. In 1910, 
in the Southern States, title to 15,691,536 acres of 
land was held by negroes, and the equity was large. 
This amount represents an increase of over 2,330,- 
000 acres since 1900 but is nevertheless only 4.4 per 
cent of the total farm land in the South. As ten- 
ants or managers, negroes cultivated in addition 
nearly 27,000,000 acres. In other words, 29.8 per 
cent of the population owned 4.4 per cent of the 
land and cultivated 12 per cent of it. The to- 
tal value of the land owned was $273,000,000, an 
average of $1250 to the farm.* 

* It must be noted, however, that during the decade ending in 1910, 
the percentage of increase in negro farm owners was 17 as against 12 
for the whites, and of increase in the value of their holdings was 156 
per cent as against 116 per cent for whites, while the proportion of 
white tenantsincreased. The other property of the negro can only be 
estimated, as most States do not list the races separately. The census 


for 1910 reports 430,449 homes, rural and urban, owned by negroes, and 
of these 314.340 were free of encumbrance, compared with a total of 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 135 


Speaking broadly, the right of the negro to work 
at any sort of manual or mechanical labor is not 
questioned in the South. Negroes and whites work 
together on the farm, and a negro may rent land 
almost anywhere. In thousands of villages and 
towns one may see negro plumbers, carpenters, 
and masons working by the side of white men. A 
negro shoemaker or blacksmith may get the pat- 
ronage of whites at his own shop or may share a 
shop with a white man. White and negro team- 
sters are employed indiscriminately. Hundreds of 
negroes serve as firemen or as engineers of station- 
ary steam engines. Thousands work in the tobac- 
co factories. Practically the only distinction made 
is this: a negro man may work with white men in- 
doors or out, but he may not work indoors by the 
side of white women except in some subordinate 
capacity, as porter or waiter. Occasionally he 
works with white women out of doors. Lack of 
economic success therefore cannot be charged en- 
tirely or even primarily to racial discrimination. 
Where the negro often fails is in lack of reliability, 
regularity, and faithfulness. In some occupations 


327,537 homes in 1900, of which 229,158 were free. Further dis- 
cussion of the part of the negro in agriculture will be found in another 
chapter. 


136 THE NEW SOUTH 


he is losing ground. Not many years ago barbers, 
waiters, and hotel employees in the South usually 
were negroes, but they have lost their monopoly in 
all these occupations. White men are taking their 
place as barbers and white girls now often serve 
in dining-rooms and on elevators. On the other 
hand, the number of negro seamstresses seems to 
be increasing. A generation ago, many locomo- 
tive firemen were negroes, but now the proportion 
is decreasing. There are hundreds, even thousands, 
of negro draymen who own teams, and some of 
them have become prosperous. 

White patronage of negroes in business depends 
partly upon custom and partly upon locality. Ne- 
groes who keep livery stables and occasionally gar- 
ages receive white patronage. In nearly every 
community there is a negro woman who bakes 
cakes for special occasions. Many negroes act as 
caterers or keep restaurants, but these must be for 
whites only or blacks only, but not for both. A 
negro market gardener suffers no discrimination, 
and a negro grocer may receive white patronage, 
though he usually does not attempt to attract 
white customers. There are a few negro dairy- 
men, and some get the best prices for their prod- 
ucts. Where a negro manufactures or sells goods 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 137 


in a larger way, as in brickyards, cement works, 
lumber yards and the like, race prejudice does not 
interfere with his trade. 

Negro professional men, on the other hand, get 
little or no white patronage. No negro pastor 
preaches to a white congregation, and no negro 
teaches in a school for whites. Negro lawyers, den- 
tists, and doctors are practically never employed 
by whites. In the past the number engaged in 
these professions has been negligible, and that any 
increase in the total of well trained negro profes- 
sional men will make an immediate change in the 
attitude of whites is unlikely. The relation of 
lawyer and client or physician and patient pre- 
sumes a certain intimacy and subordination to 
greater wisdom which the white man is not willing 
to acknowledge where a negro is involved. Negro 
women, trained or partially trained, are employed 
as nurses, however, in increasing numbers. 

In 1865, the great mass of negroes was wholly 
illiterate. Some of the free negroes could read and 
write, and a few had graduated at some Northern 
college. Though the laws which forbade teaching 
slaves to read or write were not generally enforced, 
only favored house servants received instruction. 
It is certain that the percentage of illiteracy was at 


138 THE NEW SOUTH 


least 90, and possibly as high as 95. This has been 
progressively reduced until in 1910 the proportion 
of the illiterate negro population ten years old or 
over was 30.4 per cent, and the number of college 
and university graduates was considerable though 
the proportion was small. Since the percentage 
of native white illiteracy in the United States is 
but 3, the negro is evidently ten times as illiterate 
as the native white. This comparison is not fair 
to the negro, however, for illiteracy in the urban 
communities in the United States is less than in 
the rural districts, owing largely to better educa- 
tional facilities in the cities; and 82.3 per cent of 
the negro population is rural.! 

The negroes along with the whites have suffered 
and still suffer from the inadequate school facilities 
of the rural South. The percentage of illiterate 
negro children between the ages of ten and fourteen 

t In New England negro illiteracy is 7.1 per cent in the cities and 
16.9 per cent in the rural communities. Then, too, the great masses 
of negroes live in States which are predominantly rural and in which 
the percentage of white illiteracy is also high. The percentage of 
native white illiteracy in the rural districts of the South Atlantic 
States is 9.8 and in the East South Central is 11.1 per cent. Negro 
illiteracy in the corresponding divisions is 36.1 per cent and 37.8 per 
cent. In the urban communities of these divisions, illiteracy on the 
part of both whites and negroes is less. Native white illiteracy is 2.2 


per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively, while negro illiteracy in the 
towns was 21.4 and 23.8 per cent respectively. 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 139 


in the country as a whole was only 18.9 per cent 
compared with the general average of 30.4 for the 
negroes as a whole. It is evident, then, that as 
the negroes now fifty years old and over die off, the 
illiteracy of the whole mass will continue to drop, 
for it is in the older group that the percentage of 
illiterates is highest. It must not be concluded 
from these figures that negro illiteracy is not a 
grave problem, nor that negro ability is equal to 
that of the whites, nor that the negro has taken 
full advantage of such opportunities as have been 
opentohim. Itdoesappear, however, that the pro- 
portion of negro illiteracy is not entirely his fault. 

The negro fleeing from discrimination in the 
South has not always found a fraternal welcome in 
the North, for the negro mechanic has generally 
been excluded from white unions and has often 
been denied the opportunity to work at his trade." 
He has also found difficulty in obtaining living 
accommodations and there has been much race 
friction. It is perhaps a question worth asking 
whether any considerable number of white men of 
Northern European stock are without an instinc- 
tive dislike of those manifestly unlike themselves. 


: The American Federation of Labor in 1919 voted to take steps 
to recognize and admit negro unions. 


140 THE NEW SOUTH 


The history of the contact between such stocks and 
the colored races shows instance after instance of 
refusal to recognize the latter as social or political 
equals. Indian, East Indian, and African have all 
been subjected to the domination of the whites. 
There have been many cases of illicit mating, of 
course, but the white man has steadily refused to 
legitimize these unions. The South European, on 
the contrary, has mingled freely with the natives 
of the countries he has colonized and to some ex- 
tent has been swallowed up by the darker mass. 
Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, the Portuguese colonies in 
different parts of the world, are obvious examples. * 

In the Southern States the white man has made 
certain decisions regarding the relation of blacks 
and whites and is enforcing them without regard to 
the negro’s wishes. The Southerner is convinced 
that the negro is inferior and acts upon that convic- 
tion. There is no suggestion that the laws forbid- 
ding intermarriage be repealed, or that separate 
schools be discontinued. Restaurants and hotels 


t How much of this difference in attitude is due to lack of pride in 
race integrity and how much to religion is a question. The Ro- 
man Catholic Church, which is dominant in Southern Europe, does 
not encourage such inter-racial marriages, but, on the other hand, 
it does not forbid them or pronounce them unlawful. Yet this can- 
not explain the whole difference. There seems to be another factor. 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 141 


must cater to one race only. Most of the States 
require separation of the races in common carriers 
and even in railway stations. The laws require 
that “equal accommodations” shall be furnished 
on railroads, but violations are frequently evident, 
as the railways often assign old or inferior equip- 
ment to the negroes. In street cars one end is 
often assigned to negroes and the other to whites, 
and therefore the races alternate in the use of the 
same seats when the car turns back at the end of 
the line. The division in a railway station may be 
nothing more than a bar or a low fence across the 
room, and one ticket office with different windows 
may serve both races. 

Some of these regulations are defended on the 
ground that by reducing close contact they lessen 
the chances of race conflict. That such a result is 
measurably attained is probable, and the comfort 
of traveling is increased for the whites at least. 
William Archer, the English journalist and author, 
in Through Afro-America says, “I hold the system of 
separate cars a legitimate means of defence against 
constant discomfort,’’ and most travelers will ap- 
prove his verdict. The chief reason for such regu- 
lations, however, is to assert and emphasize white 
superiority. Half a dozen black nurses with their 


142 THE NEW SOUTH 


charges may sit in the car reserved for whites, be- 
cause they are obviously dependents engaged in — 
personal service. Without such relationship, how- 
ever, not one of them would be allowed to remain. 
It is not so much the presence of the negro to which 
the whites object but to that presence in other than 
an inferior capacity. This is the explanation of 
much of the so-called race prejudice in the South: 
it is not prejudice against the individual negro but 
is rather a determination to assert white superior- 
ity. So long as the negro is plainly dependent and 
recognizes that dependency, the question of prej- 
udice does not arise, and there is much kindly inti- 
macy between individuals. The Southern white 
man or white woman of the better class is likely to 
protect and help many negroes at considerable cost 
of time, labor, and money, but the relationship is 
always that of superior and inferior. If a sugges- 
tion of race equality creeps in, antagonism is at 
once aroused. 

It is the fashion to speak of the “old-time negro” 
and the “new negro.” The types are easily rec- 
ognizable. One is quiet, unobtrusive, more or 
less industrious. He “‘knows his place” — which 
may mean anything from servility to self-respect- 
ing acceptance of his lot in life. The other resents 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 143 


more or less openly the discrimination against his 
race, and this resentment may range from imperti- 
nence to sullenness and even to dreams of social 
equality imposed by force. Some havea smattering 
of education while others, who have been subject- 
ed to little training or discipline, are indolent and 
shiftless. The thoughtless, however, are likely to 
include in this classification the industrious, in- 
telligent negro who orders his conduct along the 
same lines as the white man. 

This last type, it is true, is sometimes regarded 
with suspicion. Many men and women in the 
South fear the progress of the negro. They do not 
realize that the South cannot really make satis- 
factory progress while any great proportion of the 
population is relatively inefficient. Some fear the 
negro’s demand to be treated as a man. On the 
other hand, many negroes demand to be treated 
as men, while ignoring or perhaps not realizing 
the fact that, to be treated as a man, one must 
play a man’s part. As Booker Washington put 
the matter, many are more interested in getting rec- 
ognition than in getting something to recognize. 
Many are much more interested in their rights 
than in their duties. To be sure the negro is not 
alone in this, for the same attitude is to be found in 


144 THE NEW SOUTH | 


immigrants coming from the socially and politically 
backward states of Europe. The ordinary negro, 
however, apparently does not think much of such 
problems of the future, though no white man is 
likely to know precisely what he does think. He 
goes about his business or his pleasure seemingly at 
peace with the world, though perhaps he sings 
somewhat less than he once did. He attends his 
church and the meetings of his lodge or lodges, and 
works more or less regularly. Probably the great 
majority of negroes more nearly realize their ambi- 
tions than do the whites. They do not aspire to 
high position, and discrimination does not burn 
them quite as deeply as the sometimes too sym- 
pathetic white man who tries to put himself in 
their place may think. 

There are, however, some individuals to whom 
the ordinary conditions of any negro’s life appear 
particularly bitter. With mental ability, educa- 
tion, and esthetic appreciation often comparable 
to those of the whites, and with more than normal 
sensitiveness, they find the color line an intolerable 
insult, since it separates them from what they value 
most. They rage at the barrier which shuts them 
out from the society which they feel themselves 
gualified to enter, and they are always on the alert 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 145 


to discern injuries. These injuries need not be 
positive, for neglect is-quite as strong a grievance. 

These individuals all spell negro with a capital 
and declare that they are proud of their race. They 
parade its achievements — and these are not small 
when enumerated all at once — but they avoid in- 
timate association with the great mass of negroes. 
They are not at all democratic, and in a negro state 
they would assume the privileges of an aristocracy 
as a matter of right. It would seem that their de- 
mand for full political and social rights for all ne- 
groes has for its basis not so much the welfare of the 
race as a whole, as the possibility of obtaining for 
themselves special privileges and positions of leader- 
ship. They are not satisfied merely with full legal 
rights. In those States where there is no legal dis- 
crimination in public places, their denunciation of 
social prejudice is bitter. They are not content to 
take their chances with other groups but sometimes 
are illogical enough to demand social equality en- 
forced by law, though by this phrase they mean 
association with the whites merely for themselves; 
they do not wish other negroes less developed than 
themselves to associate with them. 

In any city where there is any considerable num- 
ber of this class, there is a section of negro society 


Io 


146 THE NEW SOUTH 


in which social lines are drawn as strictly as in the 
most aristocratic white community. To prove that 
the negroes are not emotional, these aristocrats 
among them are likely to insist upon rigid formal- 
ity in their church services and upon meticulous 
correctness in all the details of social gatherings. 
Since many of these individuals have a very large 
admixture of white blood, occasionally one crosses 
the barrier and “goes white.” Removal to a new 
town or city gives the opportunity to cut loose from 
all previous associations and to start a new life. 
. The transition is extremely difficult, of course, and 
requires much care and discretion, but it has been 
made. The greater part of them nevertheless re- 
main negroes in the eyes of the law, however much 
they strive to separate themselves in thought and 
action from the rest of their kind. It is this small 
class of “‘intellectuals” who were Booker T. Wash- 
ington’s bitterest enemies. His theory that the 
negro should first devote himself to obtaining eco- 
nomic independence and should leave the adjust- 
ment of social relations to the future was de- 
nounced as treason to the race. Washington’s op- 
portunism was even more obnoxious to them than 
is the superior attitude of the whites. They de- 
nounced him as a trimmer, a time-server, and a 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 147 


traitor, and on occasion they hissed him from the 
platform. From their safe refuges in Northern 
cities, some negro orators and editors have gone so 
far as to advocate the employment of the knife and 
the torch to avenge real or fancied wrongs, but 
these counsels have done little harm for they have 
not been read by those to whom they were ad- 
dressed. Perhaps, indeed, they may not have been 
meant entirely seriously, for the negro, like other 
emotional peoples, sometimes plays with words 
without realizing their full import. 

On the whole there is surprisingly little friction 
between the blacks and the whites. One may live 
a long time in many parts of the South without 
realizing that the most important problem of the 
United States lies all about him. Then an explo- 
sion comes, and he realizes that much of the South 
is on the edge of a volcano. For a time the white 
South attempted to divest itself of responsibility 
for the negro. He had turned against those who 
had been his friends and had followed after strange 
gods; therefore let him go his way alone. This atti- 
tude never was universal nor was it consistently 
maintained, for there is hardly one of the older ne- 
groes who does not have a white man to whom he 
goes for advice or help in time of trouble — a sort 


148 THE NEW SOUTH 


of patron, in fact. Many a negro has been saved 
from the chain gang or the penitentiary because of 
such friendly interest, and many have been posi- 
tively helped thereby toward good citizenship. 
Nevertheless there has been a tendency on the part 
of the whites to remain passive, to wait until the 
negro asked for help. 

Undoubtedly there is now developing in the 
South a growing sense of responsibility for the wel- 
fare of the negro. The negro quarters of the 
towns, so long neglected, are receiving more atten- 
tion from the street cleaners; better sidewalks are 
being built; and the streets are better lighted. 
The sanitary officers are more attentive. The 
landowner is building better cabins for his tenants 
and is encouraging them to plant gardens and to 
raise poultry and pigs. The labor contractor is 
providing better quarters, though conditions in 
many lumber and construction camps are still de- 
plorable. Observant lawyers and judges say that 
they see an increasing number of cases in which 
juries evidently decide points of doubt in favor of 
negro defendants, even where white men are con- 
cerned. Socially minded citizens are forcing im- 
provement of the disgraceful conditions which have 
often prevailed on chain gangs and in prisons. Nor 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 149 


is this all. More white men and women are teach- 
ing negroes than ever before. The oldest univer- 
sity in the United States points proudly to the 
number of Sunday schools for negroes conducted 
by its students, and it is not alone in this high 
endeavor. Many Southern colleges and universi- 
ties are studying the negro problem from all sides 
and are trying to help in its solution. The visiting 
nurses in the towns spend a large proportion of 
their time among the negroes, striving to teach 
hygiene and sanitation. White men frequently 
lecture before negro schools. Since the beginning 
of the Great War negro women have been encour- 
aged to aid in Red Cross work. Negroes have 
been appointed members of city or county com- 
mittees of defense and have worked with the whites 
in many branches of patriotic endeavor. Negroes 
have subscribed liberally in proportion to their 
means for Liberty Bonds and War Savings Stamps 
and have given liberally to war work. 

The growth of a sense of responsibility for the 
welfare of the negro upon the part of the more 
thoughtful and more conscientious portion of the 
white population has reduced racial friction in 
many communities. White women are evincing 
more interest in the morals of black women than 


150 THE NEW SOUTH 


was usual fifteen or twenty years ago. Ostracism 
is more likely to visit a white man who crosses the 
line. There is no means of knowing the actual 
amount of illicit intercourse, but the most compe- 
tent observers believe it to be decreasing. Though 
the percentage of mulattoes has increased since 
1890, according to the census, the figures are con- 
fessedly inaccurate, and the increase can be easily 
accounted for by the marriage of mulattoes with 
negroes, and the consequent diffusion of white 
blood. An aspiring negro is likely to seek a mu- 
latto wife, and their children will be classed as 
mulattoes by the enumerators. 

Except for the demagogues, whose abuse of the 
negro is their stock in trade, the most bitter de- 
nunciations come from those nearest to him in 
economic status. The town loafers, the cotton 
mill operatives, the small farmers, particularly the 
tenant farmers, are those who most frequently 
clash with both the impertinent and the self-re- 
specting negro. In their eyes self-respect may not 
be differentiated from insolence. If a negro is not 
servile, they are likely to class him as impertinent 
or worse. The political success of Blease of South 
Carolina, Vardaman of Mississippi, and the late 
Jeff. Davis of Arkansas is largely due to their 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 151 


appeal to these types of whites. The negro on the 
other hand may resent the assumption of superior- 
ity on the part of men perhaps less efficient than 
himself. Obviously friction may arise under such 
conditions. 

The mobs which have so often stained the repu- 
tation of the South by defiance of the law and by 
horrible cruelty as well do not represent the best 
elements of the South. The statement so often 
made that the most substantial citizens of a com- 
munity compose lynching parties may have been 
partially true once, but it is not true today. These 
mobs are chiefly made up from the lowest third of 
the white community Perhaps the persistence of 
the belief has prevented the wiser part of the popu- 
lation from stamping out such lawlessness; perhaps 
some lingering feeling of mistaken loyalty to the 
white race restrains them from strong action; per- 
haps the individualism of the Southerner has inter- 
fered with general acceptance of the idea of the 
inexorable majesty of the law which must be vin- 
dicated at any cost. Yet, in spite of all these 
undercurrents of feeling, sheriffs and private citi- 
zens do on occasion brave the fury of enraged mobs 
to rescue or to protect. Attempts to prosecute 
participants in such mobs usually fail in the South 


152 THE NEW SOUTH 


as elsewhere, but occasionally a jury convicts. 

The tradition that, years ago, lynching was only 
invoked in punishment of the unspeakable crime is 
more or less true. Itis not truenow. The statis- 
tics of lynching which are frequently presented are 
obviously exaggerated, as they include many cases 
which are simply the results of the sort of personal 
encounters which might and do occur anywhere. 
There is a tendency to class every case of homicide 
in which a negro is the victim as a lynching, which 
is manifestly unfair; but even though liberal allow- 
ance be made for this error, in the total of about 
3000 cases tabulated in the last thirty years, the 
undisputed instances of mob violence are shame- 
fully numerous. Rape is by no means the only 
crime thus punished; sometimes the charge is so 
trivial that one recoils in horror at the thought of 
taking human life as a punishment. 

Yet it must not be forgotten that over certain 
parts of the South a nameless dread is always hover- 
ing. In some sections an unaccompanied white 
woman dislikes to walk through an unlighted vil- 
lage street at night; she hesitates to drive along a 
lonely country road in broad daylight without a 
pistol near her hand; and she does not dare to walk 
through the woods alone. The rural districts are 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 153 


poorly policed and the ears of the farmer working 
in the field are always alert for the sound of the bell 
or the horn calling for help, perhaps from his own 
home. Occasionally, in spite of all precautions 
some human animal, inflamed by brooding upon 
the unattainable, leaves a victim outraged and 
dead, or worse than dead. Granted that such a 
crime occurs in a district only once in ten, or even 
in twenty years; that is enough. Rural folks have 
long memories, and in the back of their minds per- 
sists an uncontrollable morbid dread. The news 
of another victim sometimes turns men into fiends 
who not only take life but even inflict torture be- 
forehand. ‘The mere suspicion of intent is some- 
times enough to deprive such a community of its 
reason, for there are communities which have 
brooded over the possibility of the commission of 
the inexpiable crime until the residents are not 
quite sane upon this matter. Naturally calmness 
and forbearance in dealing with other and less 
heinous forms of negro crime are not always found 
in such a neighborhood. This fact helps to explain, 
though not to excuse, some of the riots that occur. 
The better element in the South, however, op- 
poses mob violence, and this opposition is growing 
stronger and more purposeful. Associations have 


154 THE NEW SOUTH 


been formed to oppose mob rule and to punish par- 
ticipants. Where reputable citizens are lukewarm 
it is largely because they have not realized that the 
old tradition that lynching is the proper remedy for 
rape cannot stand. If sudden, sharp retribution 
were inflicted upon absolute proof, only for this one 
cause, it is doubtful whether much effective opposi- 
tion could be enlisted. Yet wiser men have seen 
defiance of law fail to stop crime, have seen mobs 
act upon suspicions afterward proved groundless, 
have seen mob action widely extended, and have 
seen the growth of a spirit of lawlessness. Where 
one mob has had its way, another is always more 
easily aroused, and soon the administration of the 
law becomes a farce. In some years hardly a 
third of the victims of this summary process have 
been charged with rape or intent to commit rape. 
As a consequence the sentiment that the law should 
take its course in every case is steadily growing.” 
Though mob fury has broken out on occasion in 
every Southern State, Maryland, West Virginia, 


t The statistics on lynching do not always agree. Those compiled 
at Tuskegee Institute list 38 cases for 1917 and 62 for 1918. The 
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in its 
report Thirty Years of Lynching (1919) reports 67 cases for 1918, and 
325 cases for the five-year period ending with 1918, of which 304 are 
said to have occurred in the South. 


THE PROBLEM OF BLACK AND WHITE 155 


Kentucky, and North Carolina are measurably 
free from such visitations. Over considerable per- 
iods of time, Georgia comes unenviably first, fol- 
lowed by Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana. These 
four States have furnished a large majority of the 
lynchings. The other States range between the 
two groups, though in proportion to the negro ele- 
ment in its population Oklahoma has had a dispro- 
portionate share. It may be said that the lynch- 
ings occur chiefly in those sections or counties 
where the numbers of whites and negroes are nearly 
equal. They are fewer in the black belt and in 
those counties and States where whites are in an 
overwhelming majority. 

No man has been wise enough to propose any 
solution of the negro question which does not re- 
quire an immediate and radical change in human 
nature. As the proportion of negroes able to read 
and write grows larger, they will certainly demand 
full political rights, which the mass of the whites, 
so far as any one can judge, will be unwilling to al- 
low. Deportation to Africa — proposed in all seri- 
ousness — is impossible. Negro babies are born 
faster than they could easily be carried away, even 
if there were no other obstacle. The suggestion 
that whites be expelled from a State or two, which 


156 THE NEW SOUTH 


would then be turned over to negroes, is likewise 
impracticable. Amalgamation apparently is going 
on more slowly now, and more rapid progress would 
presuppose a state of society and an attitude to- 
ward the negro entirely different from that which 
prevails anywhere in the United States. There is 
left then the theory that, with increasing wealth 
and wider diffusion of education, or even without 
them, the negro must take his place on equal terms 
in the American political and social system. This 
theory, of course, requires an absolute reversal of 
attitude upon the part of many millions of whites. 

Color and race prejudice are stubborn things, and 
California and South Africa are no more free from 
such prejudices than the Southern States. In 
fact, South Africa is today wrestling with a prob- 
lem much like that of the United States and is 
succeeding no better in solving it. The move- 
ment of negroes to the North and West, if con- 
tinued on any large scale, seems likely to mean 
simply the diffusion of the problem and not its 
solution. 


CHAPTER VIII 
EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 


Arotoaists for Reconstruction have repeatedly as- 
serted that the Reconstruction governments gave to 
the South a system of public schools unknown up 
to that time, with the implication that this boon 
more than compensated for the errors of those 
years. The statement has been so often made, 
and by some who should have known better, that it 
has generally been accepted at its face value. The 
status of public education in the South in 1860, it 
is true, was not satisfactory, and the percentage of 
illiteracy was high. Any attempt to distract at- 
tention from these facts by pointing out the great 
proportion of the Southern white population in 
colleges and academies is as much to be depreca- 
ted as the denial of the existence of public schools 
at all.* 


Some States had done little for public schools before 1860, but 
others had made more than a respectable beginning. Delaware es- 
tablished a “‘literary fund” in 1796, Tennessee in 1806, Virginia in 

157 


158 THE NEW SOUTH 


In general the public schools of the South began 
as charity schools, but this was also the case in 
several of the older States in other parts of the 
country. These schools were generally poorly 
taught in the early years, and it has been ques- 
tioned whether the training which the pupils re- 
ceived compensated them for the humiliating ac- 
knowledgment of poverty which their attendance 
implied. The amount of money available was 
small, and the teacher was generally inefficient or 
worse, but these “old field schools” did help some 
men on their way. Several States went beyond 
the idea of charity in education, and some of the 
towns and cities established excellent schools for 
all the people. 

The literary fund in North Carolina, for example, 
amounted to nearly $2,250,000 in 1840. The rapid 
increase of this fund had led to the establishment 
of public schools in 1839. To every district which 
raised $20 by local taxation, twice that amount was 


1810, Maryland in 1813, and Georgia in 1817. Kentucky and Mis- 
sissippi soon followed their example; North Carolina began to create 
such a fund in 1825; Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Mary- 
land, North Carolina, and South Carolina appropriated a part or the 
whole of their shares of the “‘surplus’’ distributed by the Federal Gov- 
ernment under the Act of 1836 to increase these funds or establish new 
ones for the support of schools; and some States levied considerable 
taxes for the support of educational institutions. 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 159 


given from the income of the literary fund. With 
the election of Calvin H. Wiley as state superinten- 
dent of education in 1852, substantial progress 
began. In 1860 there were over 3000 schools, and 
the total expenditure was $279,000. The number 
of illiterates had fallen proportionately and actu- 
ally, and ten years more of uninterrupted work 
would have done much to remove the stigma of 
illiteracy. The school fund was left intact during 
the Civil War, and most of the counties continued 
to levy school taxes. A part of the fund was lost, 
however, through the failure of the banks in which 
it was invested, and the remainder was squandered 
by the Reconstruction government. In spite of all 
discouragements, Superintendent Wiley held on 
until deposed by the provisional governor in 1865. 
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the schools 
of this State were better in 1860 than they were 
in 1880. 

During the Reconstruction period a system of 
schools was established in every one of the seceding 
States. On paper these schemes were often admir- 
able. Usually they were modeled after the system 
in the State from which some influential carpet- 
bagger came, and under normal conditions, if 
honestly and judiciously administered, they would 


160 THE NEW SOUTH 


have answered their ostensible purposes and would 
have done much to raise the intellectual level of 
the population. Conditions, however, were not 
normal. The production of wealth was hindered, 
and taxes had been increased to the point of con- 
fiscation. In States which had been ravaged by 
war, and of which the whole economic and social 
systems had been dislocated, an undue proportion 
of the total social income was demanded for the 
schools. Under existing conditions the communi- 
ties could not support the schemes of education 
which had been projected. This fact is enough to 
account for their failure, for when an individual or 
a community is unable to pay the price demand- 
ed, it matters little how desirable or laudable the 
object may be. 

As if to make failure doubly certain, the schools 
were neither honestly nor judiciously administered. 
Much money was deliberately stolen, and much 
more was wasted. Extravagant salaries were paid to 
favorites, and unnecessary equipment was bought 
at exorbitant prices. The authorities in several 
States seemed more interested in the idea of edu- 
cating negro children with white children than in 
the real process of education. Though in but four 
States — South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 161 


and Arkansas — were mixed schools the only 
schools, such an arrangement was understood to be 
the ultimate goal in several other States. Several of 
the state superintendents were negroes, and others 
were carpetbaggers dependent upon negro votes. 
Before the end of Reconstruction, several of these 
were forced to flee to avoid arrest for malfeasance 
in office. In those States where mixed schools 
alone were provided, white children did not attend 
and were thus cut off from educational opportuni- 
ties at public expense. Where separate schools were 
provided, the teachers were often carpetbaggers 
who strove “to make treason odious.” It is 
hardly surprising that some parents objected to 
having their children forced to sing John Brown’s 
Body and to yield assent to the proposition that 
all Southerners were barbarians and traitors who 
deserved hanging. 

Just after the close of the Civil War, thousands 
of white women went South to teach in schools 
which were established for negroes by Northern 
churches or benevolent associations. Every one 
who reads the reports of such organizations now, 
fifty years after, must be touched by the lofty 
faith and the burning zeal which impelled many cf 
these educational missionaries; but he must also 


tr 


162 THE NEW SOUTH 


be astonished by their ignorance of the negro and 
their blindness to actual conditions. They went 
with an ideal negro in their minds, and at first, they 
treated the negro as though he were their ideal of 
what a negro ought to be. The phases through 
which the majority of these teachers went were 
enthusiasm, doubt, disillusionment, and despair. 
Some left the South and their charges, holding that 
conditions were to blame rather than their methods; 
but others were clearsighted enough to realize that 
they had set about solving the problem in the 
wrong way. 

Beginning with the assumption that the negro 
was equal or superior to the white in natural en- 
dowment and burning with resentment against his 
“oppressors, ”’ they attempted to bridge the gap of 
centuries in a generation. They were anxious to 
bring the negro into contact with the culture of the 
white race and thereby they strengthened the con- 
clusion to which the negro had already jumped 
that educational and manual labor were an im- 
possible combination. Then, too, in order to 
prove the sincerity of their belief in the brother- 
hood of mankind, they entered into the most inti- 
mate association with their pupils and their fami- 
lies. Some of them, we know, were compelled to 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 163 


struggle hard to overcome their instinctive repug- 
nance to such intimacy. All of them taught by 
implication, and some by precept as well, that the 
Southern whites who held themselves apart were 
enemies to the blacks. That these teachers did 
some good is undoubted, but whether in the end a 
true balance would show more good than harm is 
not so certain. 

When the native whites resumed control after 
the days of Reconstruction, their first thought was 
to reduce the expenses of the State. Tax levies 
were cut to the bone, school taxes among them. 
The school funds did not always suffer proportion- 
ately, however. In 1870, when the whites secured 
control in North Carolina, the expenditure for pub- 
lic schools in that State was $152,000. In 1874, 
the school revenue was over $412,000, and the 
number of white pupils was almost the same as in 
1860; in addition 55,000 negroes were receiving in- 
struction, but the school term was only ten weeks. 
The negro seems to have received in the first years 
of the new régime a fair share of the school money, 
but that share was not large. The reaction from 
Reconstruction extravagance was long-continued, 
and perhaps has not disappeared today. 

Though the South was unable properly to support 


164 THE NEW SOUTH 


one efficient system, it now attempted to main- 
tain two, one for whites and the other for blacks. 
Necessarily .both systems were inadequate. The 
usual country school was only a rude frame or 
log building, sometimes without glass windows, in 
which one untrained teacher, without apparatus or 
the simplest conveniences, attempted to give in- 
struction in at least half a dozen subjects to a group 
of children of all ages during a period of ten to fif- 
teen weeks a year. Often even this meager period 
was divided into a summer and winter term, on the 
plea that the older children could not be spared 
from the farms for the whole time or that bad roads 
and stormy weather prevented the youngest from 
attending during the winter. 

Though it seems almost incredible under such 
conditions, something was nevertheless accom- 
plished. Many children, it is true, learned little or 
nothing and gave up the pretense of attending 
school. Others, however, found something to feed 
their hungry minds and, when they had exhausted 
what their neighborhood school had to offer, they 
attended the academies which had been reéstab- 
lished or had sprung up in the villages nearby or 
at the countyseat. Between 1875 and 1890, it was 
not at all uncommon to find in such academies 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 165 


grown men and women studying the regular high 
school subjects. Some had previously taught ru- 
ral schools and now sought further instruction; and 
others had worked on the farms or had been in 
business. Men of twenty-five or thirty sat in 
classes with town children of fifteen or sixteen, but 
made such a large proportion of the total attend- 
ance that they did not feel embarrassed by the 
contrast in ages. 

In the eighties there were scores of these acade- 
mies, institutes, and seminaries in the towns of the 
South. They were not well graded; the teachers 
may never have heard of pedagogy. Their libra- 
ries were small or altogether lacking, and their appa- 
ratus was scanty; but in spite of these drawbacks 
an unusually large proportion of the students were 
desirous to learn. Many teachers loved mathe- 
matics or Latin, and some of the students gained a 
thorough if narrow preparation for college. An 
examination of college registers of the period shows 
a considerable proportion of students of twenty- 
five or thirty years of age. There is even a 
case where a college student remained out a term 
in order to attend a session of the Legislature to 
which he had been elected. The college students 
of the late seventies and early eighties were serious 


166 THE NEW SOUTH 


minded and thought of questions as men and not 
as boys. Though the clapper of the college bell 
was sometimes thrown into the well or the presi- 
dent’s wagon was transferred to the chapel roof, 
these things were often done from a sort of sense 
of duty: college students were expected to be mis- 
chievous. Yet the whole tone of college life was 
serious. There were no organized college athletics, 
no musical or dramatic clubs, no other outside 
activities such as those to which the student of to- 
day devotes so much of his attention, except, of 
course, the “literary societies” for practice in 
declamation and debating. 

Though many towns established graded schools 
before 1890 by means of special taxes, the condi- 
tion of rural education at this time was disheart- 
ening. The percentage of negro illiteracy was fall- 
ing, because it could not easily be raised, but the re- 
duction of white illiteracy was slow. The school 
terms were still short, and many of the school 
buildings were unfit for human occupation. On 
the other hand, the quality of the teachers was im- 
proving. The short term of the schools was being 
lengthened by private subscription in some dis- 
tricts, and new and adequate buildings appeared in 
others. Progress was evidently being made, even 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 167 


if it was not obtrusive, and in that progress one of 
the leading factors was the Peabody Fund. 

In 1867 George Peabody, a native of Massachu- 
setts but then a banker of London, who had laid 
the foundation of his fortune in Baltimore, placed 
in the hands of trustees $2,100,000 in securities to 
be used for the encouragement of education in the 
Southern States. The Fund was increased to 
$3,500,000 in 1869, though a considerable part 
consisted of bonds of Mississippi and Florida 
which those States refused to recognize as valid 
obligations. The chairman of the trustees for 
many years was Robert C. Winthrop of Massa- 
chusetts, and the other members of the board were 
distinguished men, both Northern and Southern. 
The first general agent, as the active administrator 
was called, was Barnas Sears, who at the time of his 
election was president of Brown University. 

Dr. Sears was an unusual man, who compre- 
hended conditions in the South and was disposed 
to improve them in every feasible way by using the 
resources at his command. He had no inflexible 
program and was willing to modify his plans to 

.fit changing conditions. The income of the Fund 
appears small in this day of munificent founda- 
tions, but it seemed large then; and its effects were 


168 THE NEW SOUTH 


far-reaching. Sears was not an educational re- 
former in the modern sense. He seems to have 
had no new philosophy of education but took the 
best schools of the nation as a standard and strove 
to bring the schools of the South up to that stand- 
ard. Through the aid of the Fund model schools 
were established in every State. The University 
of North Carolina opened its doors to the teachers 
of the State for professional training during the 
summer and was apparently the first of the sum- 
mer schools now so numerous and popular. Direct 
appropriations in aid of schools were made out of 
the Fund, provided the community by taxation or 
subscription raised much larger sums. The Pea- 
body Normal College at Nashville, Tennessee, was 
founded, and no effort was spared to develop a 
general interest in public education. Advice to 
legislatures, trustees, or communities was given 
when asked but so tactfully that neither resentment 
nor suspicion was aroused. 

Before his death, Dr. Sears had chosen Dr. J. 
L. M. Curry as his successor, and the choice was 
promptly ratified by the trustees. Dr. Curry was 
a thorough Southerner, a veteran of both the Mexi- 
can and the Civil War. He had first practiced law 
and had sat in the House of Representatives of the 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 169 


United States and of the Confederate States. At 
the time of his election to the management of the 
Peabody Fund he was a professor in Richmond 
College, Virginia, and a minister of the Baptist 
Church. He had a magnetic personality, an un- 
yielding belief in the value of education for both 
white and black, and the temperament and gifts of 
the orator. Asa Southerner, he could speak more 
freely and more effectively to the people than his 
predecessor, who had done the pioneer work. 
During the years of his service, Curry therefore 
gave himself chiefly to the development of public 
sentiment, making speeches at every opportunity 
before societies, conventions, and other gatherings. 
As he himself said, he addressed legislatures “‘from 
the Potomac to the Rio Grande.” 

While the influence of the Peabody Fund and its 
agents was large, it was not the only influence upon 
the educational development of the South. There 
were throughout that section men who saw clearly 
that the main hope centered in education for black 
and white. They talked in season and out, though 
sometimes with little apparent result, for the op- 
posing forces were strong. Among these forces pov- 
erty was perhaps the strongest. It is difficult to 
convince a people who must struggle for the bare 


170 THE NEW SOUTH 


necessities of life that taxation for any purpose is a 
positive good; and a large proportion of the fami- 
lies of the rural South handled little money. This 
was true even for years after the towns began to 
feel the thrill of growing industrialism. It has 
sometimes seemed that the poorer a man and the 
larger the number of his children, the greater his 
dread of taxes for education. 

Then, too, the Southern people had followed the 
tradition of Jefferson that the best government is 
that which assumes the fewest functions and inter- 
feres least with the individual. Many honest men 
who meant to be good citizens felt that education 
belonged to the family or the church and could not 
see why the State should pay for teaching any more 
than for preaching, or for food, or clothing, or shel- 
ter. There were, of course, those claiming to hold 
this theory whose underlying motives were selfish. 
They had property which they had inherited or 
accumulated, and they objected to paying taxes 
for educating other people’s children. It must 
be said, however, that as a class, the larger taxpay- 
ers have been more ready to vote higher taxes 
for schools than the poor and illiterate, whose mor- 
bid dread of taxation has been fostered by the 
politician. 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS Pres 


There were others who were cold to the extension 
of public education on account of the schools al- 
ready existing. In many towns and villages there 
were struggling academies, often nominally under 
church auspices. Towns which could have sup- 
ported one school were trying to support two or 
three. In few cases was any direct financial aid 
given by the religious organization, but the school 
was known as the Methodist or the Presbyterian 
school, because the teaching force and the majority 
of the patrons belonged to that denomination. 
The denominational influence behind these schools 
was often lukewarm toward the extension of public 
education, and the ministers themselves had been 
known to make slighting references to “godless 
schools.”” There was still another class of people 
who really opposed public schools because they did 
not believe that the masses should be educated. 
This class was, however, small and is perhaps more 
numerous in other sections of the Union than in 
the South. 

Last, but by no means the least, of the obstacles 
to general public education was the question of its 
influence upon the negro. The apparent effects of 
negro education were not likely to make the aver- 
age white man feel that the experiment had been 


172 THE NEW SOUTH 


successful. The phrase that “an educated negro 
was a good plough-hand spoiled” seemed to meet 
with general acceptance. The smattering of an 
education which the negroes had received — it 
would be difficult to call it more — seemed to have 
improved neither their efficiency nor their morals. 
As a result there were many white people so short- 
sighted that they would starve their own children 
rather than feed the negro. 

To all of these obstacles in human nature were 
added the defects of the tax system. Almost in- 
variably the tax was levied by the Legislature upon 
the State as a whole or upon the county, and the 
constitutions or the laws in some eases forbade the 
progressive smaller division to levy special taxes 
for any purpose. Graded schools began, however, 
to appear in the incorporated towns which were not 
subject to the same tax limitations as the rural dis- 
tricts, and in time it became easier to levy sup- 
plementary local taxes by legislative act, judicial 
interpretation, or constitutional changes. 

Gradually public sentiment in favor of schools 
grew stronger. The legislatures raised the rate of 
taxation for school purposes, normal schools were 
established, log schoolhouses began to be replaced 
by frame or brick structures, uniform textbooks 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 173 


became the rule and not the exception, teachers’ 
salaries were raised, and the percentage of attend- 
ance climbed upward, though there was still a rem- 
nant of the population which did not attend at all. 
The school term was not proportionately extended, 
since a positive mania for small districts developed 
—a school at every man’s door. In the olden days 
large districts were common, and many of the chil- 
dren walked four or five miles to school in the 
morning and back home in the afternoon. Noone 
then dreamed of transporting the children at pub- 
lic expense. The school authorities were often un- 
able to resist the pressure to make new districts, 
and necessarily a contracted term followed. In 
1900 the average school term in North Carolina was 
not longer than in 1860, though much more money 
was spent, and the salaries were little higher. It 
must be remembered, of course, that no appropria- 
tions were made for negro education before the 
Civil War. 

Both during and after the War many schools were 
opened for negroes by Freedmen’s Aid Societies, 
various philanthropic associations, and denomina- 
tional boards or committees. As public schools 
were established for negroes, some of these organi- 
zations curtailed their work and others withdrew 


174 THE NEW SOUTH 


altogether. Others persisted, however, and new 
schools have been founded by these and similar 
organizations, by private philanthropy, and also by 
negro churches. Asa result there are independent 
schools, state schools, and Federal schools. The re- 
cent monumental report of the Bureau of Educa- 
tion reports 653 schools for negroes other than regu- . 
lar public schools.‘ Of these 28 are under public 
control, 507 are denominational schools (of which 
354 are under white boards and 153 under negro 
boards), and 118 are classed as independent. This 
last group includes not only the great national 
schools, such as Tuskegee and Hampton, but small 
private enterprises supported chiefly by irregular 
donations. These private and independent schools 
owned property valued at $28,496,946 and had an 
income of over $3,000,000. State and Federal 
appropriations at the date of the report reached 
about $963,000. 

During the first years after the downfall of the 
Reconstruction governments the negro received a 
fair proportion of the pittance devoted to public 
schools. Governor Vance of North Carolina, in 
recommending in 1877 an appropriation to the 


t Negro Education, Bureau of Education Bulletins 38 and 39 
(1916). This work supersedes all previous collections of facts upon 
negro education. 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 175 


University for a “professorship for the purpose of 
instructing in the theory and art of teaching” went 
on to state that “a school of similar character 
should be established for the education of colored 
teachers, the want of which is more deeply felt by 
the black race even than the white. ... Their 
desire for education is a very creditable one, and 
should be gratified so far as our means will permit.” 
Instead of establishing the chair of pedagogy 
recommended by Governor Vance, the Legislature 
appropriated the money to conduct the summer 
school for teachers at the University. An appro- 
priation of equal amount was made for negroes and 
similar allowances have been continued to the pres- 
ent. Proportionately larger appropriations have 
been made for the whites in recent years. Other 
States have established normal schools for negroes, 
but in none of them is the supply of trained negro 
teachers equal to the demand. 

The negro public schools were organized along 
the same lines as the white, so far as circumstances 
permitted, but the work was difficult and remains 
so to this day. The negro teachers were ignorant, 
and many of them were indolent and immoral. In 
only a few places in the South do whites teach 
negroes in public schools. The enthusiasm for 


176 THE NEW SOUTH 


education displayed just after emancipation gradu- 
ally wore off, and many parents showed little interest 
in the education of their children. Education had 
not proved the “open sesame” to affluence, and 
many parents were unwilling or unable to compel 
their children to attend school. As a contributory 
cause of this reluctance the poverty of the negro 
must be considered. It was difficult for the negro 
to send to school a child who might be of financial 
aid to the family. To many negro parents it 
seemed a matter of little moment to keep a child 
away from school one or two days a week to assist 
at home. It must also be remembered that the 
negro tenant farmer is migratory in his habits and 
that he often moved in the middle of the short 
term. Consequently the whole value of the term 
might easily be lost by the transfer. It is not sur- 
prising that the final product of such unstable 
educational conditions was not impressive. 

The idea of the first educational missionaries to 
the negroes of the South was to turn them into 
white men as soon as possible by bringing them into 
contact with the traditional culture of the whites 
through the study of Latin, Greek, mathematics, 
and sometimes Hebrew, especially in the case of 
students for the ministry. The attempt was made 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 177 


to take the negro, fresh from slavery and with no 
cultural background, through the course generally 
pursued by whites. Numerous “universities” and 
“‘colleges”’ were founded with this end in view. 
Hampton Institute with its insistence upon fitting 
education to the needs of the race was unique for a 
time, though later it received the powerful support 
of Tuskegee Institute and its noted principal and 
founder, Booker T. Washington. The influence of 
this educational prophet was great in the North, 
whence came most of the donations for private 
schools. In imitation many mushroom schools 
have recently added “rural” or “industrial” to 
their names, but few of them are doing work of 
great value. Where the school appeals chiefly to 
the negro for support, liberal use is made of such 
high-sounding names as “college” and “univer- 


> 


sity.”” The negro still thinks that the purpose of 
education is to free him from manual labor, and he 
looks with little favor upon a school which requires 
actual industrial training. For the same reason he 
is quick to protest when the attempt is made to 
introduce manual training into the public schools. 

Partly because of this opposition on the part of 
the negroes themselves, partly because industrial 


training is more expensive than purely academic 


12 


178 THE NEW SOUTH 


training, and partly because such training has only 
recently been recognized as part of education, the 
South has made little provision for the industrial 
education of the negro at public expense. Accord- 
ing to the Report on Negro Education, few of the 
agricultural and mechanical schools maintained 
partly by the Federal land grants and partly by 
the States are really efficient. A few state or city 
schools also give manual training. About one- 
third of the private schools for negroes offer in- 
dustrial courses, but much of this work is ineffective 
— either so slight as to be negligible or straight 
labor done in return for board and tuition and 
without regard to educational value. Hampton and 
Tuskegee are known to do excellent work, and a 
few of the smaller schools are to be classed as effi- 
cient; but in the great majority of negro schools the 
old curriculum is still followed, and the students 
gladly submit to its exactness. Why study some- 
thing so plebeian as carpentry when one may study 
such scholarly subjects as Latin or Greek? 

Most institutions for negroes desire to do work 
of college grade. Some with not a single pupil 
above the elementary grades nevertheless proudly 
call themselves colleges. Other so-called colleges 
have secondary pupils but none in college classes. 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 179 


Thirty-three institutions do have a total of 1643 
students in college classes and 994 students in pro- 
fessional courses, but these same schools enroll 
more than 10,000 pupils in elementary and second- 
ary grades. Some of them are attempting to main- 
tain college classes for less than 5 per cent of their 
enrollment, and the teaching force gives a dispro- 
portionate share of time to such students. Two 
of these thirty-three institutions have nearly all the 
professional students, and two have nearly half the 
total number of college students. Only three can 
properly be called colleges — Howard University 
at Washington, Fisk University, and Meharry 
Medical College at Nashville, Tennessee. 

While several of the Southern States have greatly 
increased their expenditures for schools since 1910, 
in some cases more than doubling them, the pro- 
portion devoted to negro schools has not been 
greatly increased, if indeed it has been increased 
atall. For example, in North Carolina, which as- 
signs for negro education much more than the aver- 
age of the States containing any considerable pro- 
portion of negroes, the total paid to negro teachers 
in 1910-11 was $340,856, as against $1,715,994 
paid to white teachers. Five years later, negro 
teachers received $536,272, but white teachers 


180 THE NEW SOUTH 


received $3,258,352. In other words, in the former 
year ail the negro teachers received one-fifth as 
much as all the whites, while five years later they 
received about one-sixth; that is, something less 
than one-third the total number of children re- 
ceived about one-seventh of the money expended 
for instruction. A part of this wide difference in 
expenditure may be explained or even defended. 
The districts or townships which have voted addi- 
tional local taxes are usually those in which there 
are comparatively few negroes. The average sal- 
ary paid to negro teachers, although low, is as 
large as can be earned in most of the occupations 
open to them, and any sudden or large increase 
would neither immediately raise the standard of 
competency nor insure a much larger proportion 
of the ability of the race. The percentage of school 
attendance of negro children is lower than in the 
case of white children. Very few negro children, 
whether because of economic pressure, lack of abil- 
ity, or lack of desire for knowledge, complete even 
the fifth grade. Among negroes there is little real 
demand for high school instruction, which is more 
expensive than elementary instruction. There- 
fore, the proportion of the total funds spent for 
negro education might properly be less than their 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 181 


numbers would indicate. If the proportionate 
amount spent today for the instruction of certain 
racial groups of the foreign population could be 
separated from the total, it would be found that 
less than the average is spent upon them for the 
same reasons. However, when all allowances have 
been made, it is obvious that the negro is receiving 
less than a fair share of the appropriations made by 
the Southern States for education. 

The inadequate public schools for negroes have 
been excused or justified upon the ground that 
private and church schools are supplying the need. 
This is true in some localities, for the great major- 
ity of negro private schools, no matter by what 
name they are called, are really doing only elemen- 
tary or secondary work. These schools, however, 
only touch the beginnings of the problem and have 
served in some degree to lessen the sense of re- 
sponsibility for negro education on the part of the 
Southern whites. Where there is one of these 
schools supported by outside philanthropy, the pub- 
lic school is likely to be less adequately equipped 
and supported than in the towns where no such 
school exists. But at best, these schools can reach 
only a small proportion of the children. 

The difficulty lies in public sentiment. Asarule 


182 THE NEW SOUTH 


the tax rate is fixed by the State but collected by 
the county, and the county board divides the 
amount plus any local taxes levied, among the 
schools. Districts of the same number of pupils 
may receive widely varying amounts, according to 
the grade of instruction demanded. Generally, a 
part of the fund is apportioned per capita, and the 
remainder is divided according to the supposed 
special need of the districts. A white district 
which demands high grade teachers is given the 
necessary money, if possible. Few colored schools 
have advanced pupils, and only sufficient funds 
for a cheaper teacher or teachers may be provided. 
Colored districts are often made too large. The 
white districts ask so much that little more than 
the per capita appropriation is left for the colored 
schools. The negroes are politically powerless and 
public sentiment does not demand that money be 
taken from white children to be given to negroes. 
Mention should be made of several funds which 
have been established by philanthropists for the 
education of the negro. The John F. Slater Fund, 
founded by a gift of $1,000,000 in 1882, has now 
reached $1,750,000. The greater part of the in- 
come is devoted to the encouragement of training 
schools. No schools are established by the Fund 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 183 


itself, but it codperates with the local authorities 
and the General Education Board. The Jeanes 
Fund of $1,000,000 established by a Quaker lady, 
Miss Anna T. Jeanes of Philadelphia, expends the 
greater part of its income in helping to pay the 
salaries of county supervisors for rural schools. 
These are usually young colored women, who work 
under the direction of the county superintendents 
and visit the rural schools. They give simple 
talks upon hygiene and sanitation, encourage bet- 
ter care of schoolhouses and grounds, stimulate in- 
terest in gardening and simple home industries, and 
encourage self help. Their work has been exceed- 
ingly valuable. The Phelps Stokes Fund of $900,- 
000, founded by Miss Caroline Phelps Stokes, is 
not wholly devoted to the negroes of the South. It 
has been expended chiefly in the study of the negro 
problem, in founding fellowships, and in making 
possible the valuable report on negro education 
already mentioned. In 1914, Mr. Julius Rosen- 
wald of Chicago offered to every negro rural com- 
munity wishing to erect a comfortable and ade- 
quate school building a sum not to exceed $300, 
provided that the community would obtain from 
private or public funds at least as much more. 

The interest of the General Education Board is 


184 THE NEW SOUTH 


not limited either to negro or even to Southern 
education, but it has done much for both. This 
great foundation has paid salaries of state super- 
visors of negro schools in several States and has 
codperated with the Jeanes Fund in maintaining 
county supervisors of negro schools. It has appro- 
priated over half a million dollars to industrial 
schools and about one-fourth as much to negro col- 
leges. Farm demonstration work, of which more 
is said elsewhere, is also of aid to the negroes. The 
Board has realized, however, that the development 
of negro schools is dependent upon the economic 
and educational progress of the whites, and has 
contributed most to white schools or to objects of 
a nature intended to benefit the whole population. 

All testimony points to the conclusion that there 
is now real enthusiasm for education among the 
Southern whites. The school terms are being ex- 
tended, often by means of local taxes levied in addi- 
tion to the minimum fixed by the State; the quality 
of the teaching is improving; and popular interest 
is growing. In many sections, the school is develop- 
ing into a real community center. Good buildings 
are replacing the shacks formerly so common. 
North Carolina is proud of the fact that for more 
than fourteen years an average of more than one 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 185 


new school a day has been built from plans ap- 
proved by the educational department. More 
and more attention is being paid to the surround- 
ings of the buildings. School gardens are com- 
mon, and some schools even cultivate an acre or 
two of ground, the proceeds of which go to furnish 
apparatus or supplies. Many of the Southern 
towns and cities have schools which need not fear 
comparison with those in other sections. 

The crying need is more money which can come 
only in two ways, by reforming the system of taxa- 
tion, and by increasing the amount of taxable prop- 
erty. All through the South the chief reliance is 
a general property tax with local assessors who are 
either incompetent or else desirous of keeping down 
assessments. The proportion of assessment to val- 
ue varies widely, but on the average it can hard- 
ly be more than fifty per cent; and, as invariably 
happens, the assessment of the more valuable prop- 
erties is proportionately less than that of the small 
farm or the mechanic’s home. The South is grow- 
ing richer, but the conflict with the North set the 
section back thirty or forty years, while the re- 
mainder of the country was increasing in wealth. 
Even today the South must build two school sys- 
tems without the aid of government land grants, 


186 THE NEW SOUTH 


which have had so much to do with the successful 
development of the schools of the Western States, 
and without the commercial prosperity which has 
come to the East. The rate of taxation levied for 
schools in many Southern communities is now 
among the highest in the United States. 

During the past ten years, hundreds of public 
high schools have been established, more than half 
of which are rural. Some still follow the old cur- 
riculum, but a new institution known as the ‘‘farm 
life school” is now being developed. Many other 
schools have such a department attached and usu- 
ally give instruction in household economics as 
well. The General Education Board estimates 
that $20,000,000 has been spent for improved 
buildings since the appointment of professors of 
secondary education in Southern universities. 
This, by the way, is one of the most useful contri- 
butions of the Board. These men, chosen by the 
institutions themselves as regular members of the 
faculty but with their salaries paid by an appro- 
priation from the Board, may give a course or two 
in the university, but their chief duties are to co- 
ordinate the work of the high schools and to serve 
as educational missionaries. They go up and down 
the States, exhorting, advising, and stimulating 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 187 


the people, and the fruits of their work are present 
on every hand. 

The South has a superabundance of colleges. 
Some of them have honorable records; others 
represent faith and hope or denominational zeal 
rather than accomplishment. Some of the older in- 
stitutions were kept open during War and Recon- 
struction but others were forced to close. With the 
return of white supremacy old institutions have 
been revived and new ones have been founded. 
The number of students has increased, but the 
financial difficulties of the institutions have hardly 
diminished. Few had any endowment worth con- 
sidering, and the so-called state institutions re- 
ceived very small appropriations or none at all. 
Good preparatory schools were few and, since the 
colleges were dependent upon tuition fees, many 
students with inadequate preparation were leni- 
ently admitted. Preparatory departments were es- 
tablished for those students who could not possi- 
bly be admitted to college classes. Necessarily the 
quality of work was low, though many institutions 
struggled for the maintenance of respectable stand- 
ards. One college president frankly said: ““We 
are liberal about letting young men into the Fresh- 
man class, but particular about letting them out.” 


188 THE NEW SOUTH 


It was not uncommon for half of a first year class 
to be found deficient and turned back at the end of 
the year, or dismissed as hopeless. Obviously this 
was a wasteful method of determining competency. 

Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, 
founded in 1873 by the gifts of “Commodore” 
Vanderbilt, was the first Southern institution with 
anything approaching an adequate endowment 
and was the first to insist upon thorough prepara- 
tion for entrance, though it was compelled to or- 
ganize a sub-freshman class in the beginning. Its 
policy had considerable influence both upon college 
standards and upon the growth of private prepara- 
tory schools. The development of public schools, 
for a time, had made the work of colleges in general 
more difficult, because they supplanted scores of pri- 
vate academies which had done passably well the 
work of college preparation and yet were not them- 
selves able to prepare students for college in the 
first years of their existence. For years it was 
difficult in many localities for a young man to 
secure proper preparation, and the total of poorly 
prepared students applying for admission to the 
colleges increased. The number of towns and 
cities which have established high schools or high 
school departments has since increased rapidly, 


EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS 189 


and today a larger and larger proportion of college 
students comes from public schools. 

Since 1900, the resources of the colleges have 
greatly increased. States which appropriated a 
few thousand dollars for higher education in the 
early nineties now appropriate ten or even twenty 
- times as much to their universities, agricultural 
colleges, and normal and technical schools for 
women, and have appropriated millions for new 
buildings. Many of the denominational colleges 
have obtained substantial endowments. The Gen- 
eral Education Board up to 1914 had subscribed 
over $3,000,000 to Southern colleges and universi- 
ties on condition that the institutions raise at least 
three times as much more. Southern men who have 
accumulated wealth are realizing their social respon- 
sibility. Several recent gifts of a million dollars or 
more are not included in the sum mentioned above, 
and many smaller gifts or bequests likewise. 

Standards of work have been raised with increas- 
ing income. As elsewhere the effect of the reports 
of the Carnegie Foundation has been patent. The 
stronger institutions have brought up their require- 
ments to the minimum, on paper at least, and to a 
great extent in fact. Some of the weaker institu- 
tion have dropped the pretense of doing college 


190 THE NEW SOUTH 


work; others have accepted the position of junior 
colleges doing two years of college work and giving 
no degrees. The States exercise little or no super- 
vision over the quality of work done for college 
degrees, and some institutions continue to grant 
diplomas for what is really secondary work, but the 
fact that they are not up to the standard is known 
and the management is generally apologetic. 

No other phase of Southern life is more hopeful 
and more encouraging than the educational revival. 
True, judged by the standards of the richer States, 
the terms of the rural schools are short and the pay 
of the teachers is small; but both are being in- 
creased, and no schools are exercising more whole- 
some influence. The high schools are neither so 
numerous nor so well equipped as in some other 
States, but nowhere else is such evident progress 
being made. There are no universities in the 
South which count their income in millions, but 
the number of institutions adequately equipped to 
do efficient work is already large and increasing. 
The spirit of faculty and students is admirable, 
and the contact of the institutions and the people of 
the Southern States is increasingly close and full 
of promise. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE SOUTH OF TODAY 


Tur South of the present is a changing South with 
its face toward the future rather than the past. 
Nevertheless the dead hand is felt by all the people 
a part of the time, and some of the people are never 
free from its paralyzing touch. Old prejudices, 
the remembrance of past grievances, and antipa- 
thies long cherished now and then assert themselves 
in the most unexpected fashion. The Southerner, 
no matter how much he may pride himself upon 
being liberal and broad, is likely to make certain 
reservations and limitations in his attitude. There 
are some questions upon which he is not open to 
argument, certain subjects which he cannot discuss 
freely and dispassionately. Some Southerners 
have so many of these reservations that conversa- 
tion with them is difficult unless one instinctively 
understands their psychology and is willing to 


avoid certain subjects. The past has made so 
191 


192 THE NEW SOUTH 


powerful an impression upon them that it has 
affected their whole attitude of mind. 

Time, travel, association, engrossing work, and 
economic prosperity have weakened many of these 
prejudices and antipathies, however, and the South- 
erner is becoming free. There are individuals who 
will always be bound by the past; there are some 
men, and more women, who are yet ‘“‘unrecon- 
structed’”’; there are neighborhoods and villages 
where men and women yet live in the past and 
absolutely refuse to attempt to adjust themselves 
cheerfully to changed and changing conditions. 
This is not true of the Southern people as a whole. 
In fact there is danger that the younger generation 
will think too little of the past. Much of the Old 
South is worthy of preservation, and it is never safe 
for a country or a section to break too abruptly 
with its older life. 

Economically the South has prospered in pro- 
portion as the new spirit has ruled. The question 
of secession is dead, and the man who refuses today 
to treat it as past history but grows excited in dis- 
cussing it is not likely to be successful in his busi- 
ness or profession. The men of the New South 
spend little time in discussing the relative wisdom 
of Jefferson Davis and Robert Toombs or the 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 193 


reasons for the failure of the Confederacy. The 
Southerners accept the results of the War, and all 
except a negligible minority are convinced that 
the preservation of the Union was for the best. 
To be sure they believe, partly through knowledge 
but more largely through absorption, that the Con- 
federate soldier was the best fighting man ever 
known and that the War might have been won if 
the civil government had been wiser, but on the 
whole they are not sorry that secession failed. They 
thrill even today to Dirie, and The Bonnie Blue 
Flag, but this feeling is now purely emotional. 

All the Southern States have felt, though un- 
equally, the effects of industrialism. The South 
Atlantic States have been most influenced by this 
movement, but even Mississippiand Arkansas have 
been affected. In many sections the traveler is 
seldom out of sight of the factory chimney. Some 
towns, in appearance and spirit, might easily seem 
to belong to a Middle Western environment but 
for the presence of the negro and the absence of the 
foreign born. The population in these Southern 
towns is still overwhelmingly American. In no 
States except Maryland and Texas did the foreign 
born number as many as 100,000 in 1910, and Mis- 
sissippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina each 


13 


194 THE NEW SOUTH 


had less than 10,000 at that time. The highest 
percentage of foreign born was 8.6 per cent in Dela- 
ware, the lowest 0.3 per cent in North Carolina. 
In the South as a whole the proportion of foreign 
born whites was only 2.5 per cent. 

The laborers in the Southern shops and mills to- 
day are not only native born but almost altogether 
Southern born. The South has been a great loser 
through interstate migration. Other sections also 
have lost but the excess of those departing has been 
replaced by the immigration of foreign born. Com- 
paratively few have come to the South from other 
sections except in Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, 
and Texas, and fewer foreign born have settled 
in the South. As a result, the percentage of in- 
crease of population is less for the South, if Okla- 
homa be omitted, than for the United States as a 
whole. Many of the laborers are of rural origin or 
are only a generation removed from the farm. 
They preserve the individualistic attitude of the 
rural mind and have learned little of collective ac- 
tion. Labor unions have made small progress ex- 
cept in a few skilled trades and class consciousness 
has not developed in the South. i 

The important industries have thus far been few 
and they have kept rather close to the original raw 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 195 


material. The South does not spin all the cotton 
it produces, does not weave all the yarn it spins, 
and does not manufacture into clothing any con- 
siderable quantity of the cloth it weaves. The 
greater part of both yarn and cloth is coarse, 
though some mills do finer work. Little bleaching 
or printing, however, is done. The South is a land 
of curious economic contrasts. It produces sugar 
but buys confectionery. It produces immense 
quantities of lumber but works up comparatively 
little, and this mainly into simple forms. It pro- 
duces iron and steel in considerable quantities but 
has few machine shops where really delicate work 
can be done. It does not manufacture motor cars, 
electric or even textile machinery or machine tools, 
nor does it make watches or firearms in appreciable 
quantities. In short, the South carries some of the 
most important raw materials only a step or two 
toward their ultimate form and depends upon 
other parts of the country for the finished article. 
Years ago the story was told of a Georgia funeral 
at which that State furnished only the corpse and 
the grave. Georgia, and other States too, can do 
much more today, if the funeral be not too elabo- 
rate. It can furnish a cotton shroud, each year of 
finer quality. The knitting mills of the South are 


196 THE NEW SOUTH 


able to supply an increasing proportion of the pop- 
ulation with hose and underclothing, and a number 
of the mills are gaining a national trade through 
advertising. If demanded, Southern-made shoes 
may be found, and a Southern-made coffin may be 
drawn on a Southern-made wagon by Southern- 
bred horses and perhaps, though improbably, in 
harness of local manufacture also. 

The South was once the richest section of the 
Union. The vicissitudes of the Civil War rendered 
it poor, but now it is rapidly growing richer and 
since the beginning of the Great War has shown a 
phenomenal accumulation of new capital. During 
this great struggle some of the cotton mills made 
in a single month profits as large as they were 
formerly accustomed to make in a year. Even 
though the farmer received for his cotton much 
more than usual, the price of cloth would still have 
yielded a profit to the manufacturer if cotton had 
been twice as high. Other enterprises have like- 
wise been profitable, and when normal conditions 
are restored this capital will seek new investment. 
While prophecy is dangerous it seems probable 
that manufacturing in the South will grow as never 
before; and new forms of investment must be 
found, as the rural districts cannot furnish any 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 197 


greatly increased supply of labor for cotton manu- 
facturing though the towns can supply some adult 
labor for other forms of industry. 

The labor question is beginning to grow serious 
in some localities, though it is difficult to discover 
whether the problem is chiefly one of getting labor 
at all or of getting it at something like the wages 
formerly paid. Apparently, however, the indus- 
trial growth of the South has been more rapid than 
that of population. Heretofore the farmer has had 
little difficulty in obtaining some sort of assist- 
ance in cultivating his land, and this abundance of 
labor has lessened the demand for agricultural ma- 
chinery. Now the migration of the negro to the 
North has created a shortage of labor which must 
force the farmer to purchase machinery. Too 
much man and horse power has been employed 
upon Southern farms in proportion to the results 
achieved. The South has been producing a large 
value per acre but a small value per individual. 
If the South is to become permanently prosperous, 
fewer persons must do the work and must even 
increase the production. 

A practical cotton-picking machine would help 
to solve some of the South’s problems, as any 
family can plant and cultivate after a fashion 


198 THE NEW SOUTH 


much more cotton than it can pick. Many at- 
tempts to produce such a machine have been made, 
but simplicity, efficiency, and cheapness have not 
yet been attained. Like the reaper and binder, a 
machine of this sort is needed for only a small por- 
tion of the ycar, but in that short period the need 
is extreme. Such a machine would revolutionize 
the tenant system, would permit a larger produc- 
tion of food, and at the same time would set labor 
free for other occupations. Meanwhile the general 
rate of wages in agriculture has risen and must rise 
still further, as it has done in other occupations. 
Any student of economics who draws his conclu. 
sions from observation of life as well as from books 
realizes how large a part custom plays in determin- 
ing wages, and hitherto farm wages have been very 
low and labor has been inefficient in the South. 

The economic future of the South must rest upon 
the advance of the farmer. This thesis has already 
been developed at length in another chapter, where 
the present unsatisfactory organization and con- 
ditions of agriculture were also discussed. Im- 
provement, however, is already becoming evident. 
Cotton furnishes two-fifths of the value of all farm 
products, with corn, hay, tobacco, and wheat fol- 
lowing in the order named. Gradually the West 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 199 


is ceasing to be the granary and the smokehouse 
of the Southern farmer, but the South does not 
yet feed itself. In 1917 only Maryland, Delaware, 
Virginia, and Oklahoma produced a surplus of 
wheat, though it is estimated that the South as a 
whole reduced its deficiency by more than 35,000,- 
000 bushels. The abnormal prices of agricultural 
products since 1915 have brought many farmers 
out of debt and set them on the road toward pros- 
perity, but many have not yet realized that they 
are no longer objects of commiseration. Though 
the high prices of war times have brought pros- 
perity to the farmer, the crying necessity today is 
a larger production per man employed. 

The political, as well as the economic, condition 
of the South today is full of interest. Politically 
the common man is in control, and as a rule he 
selects men of his own type to represent him. The 
primary was almost universal in the South when 
the West was only thinking of it as a radical in- 
novation. The day of aristocratic domination is 
over, if indeed it ever really existed. In many 
instances descent from well-known ancestors who 
have held high positions has proved a positive det- 
riment to a political candidate of today. Some of 
the successful politicians, as might be expected, are 


200 THE NEW SOUTH 


demagogues. States differ in the number of poli- 
ticians of this type, and the same State may vary 
from year to year. It may at the same time send a 
demagogue and a statesman to the Senate. Men 
are permitted to hold offices, both national and 
state, for longer periods than formerly, and, as a 
result, in recent Democratic Congresses Southern 
men have held the most important chairmanships.' 

That the Southern representation in Congress is 
equal in ability, culture, and character to that of 
the Old South or to that of even thirty years ago 
can hardly be seriously maintained. There are in 
Congress a few men today who recall the best tradi- 
tions of Southern leadership; there are more who 
are mediocre and parochial. For the most part 
they come from law offices in country towns, and 
have the virtues and the limitations of their en- 
vironment. They are honest financially, if not in- 
tellectually, and do not consciously yield to “the 
interests.”’ They are correct in their private lives 
and likely to be somewhat bigoted. Many are 
convinced that cities are essentially wicked and 


« North Carolina, for example, had in the 65th Congress, the chair- 
manship of the Committees on Finance and on Rules in the Senate, 
and on Ways and Means, Rules, Judiciary, and Rivers and Harbors 
in the House, besides other chairmanships of less account. Seldom 
in the whole history of the country has the representation of any 
State been so powerful. 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 201 


conceive them to be inhabited by vampires and 
parasites. Few can think in national terms, and 
fewer have either knowledge or comprehension of 
international relations. For a generation the South 
was excluded from any real participation in na- 
tional affairs and was wholly occupied with local 
questions. It is therefore difficult for such men to 
realize the present position of the United States in 
world politics. With much perturbation of spirit 
the rank and file followed the President in the steps 
leading up to the Great War, though some of the 
would-be leaders attempted to rebel. On the 
other hand, some of the most valuable men in the 
great crisis were Southerners. 

The dominant party in the South is called Demo- 
cratic, but the name has little of its original signifi- 
cance today. The representative is likely to fol- 
low the sentiment of his district if he can discover 
it. Some of the Southern Democrats advocate 
doctrines which are far removed from traditional 
democracy, for Populistic ideas have not entirely 
died out and some of the farmers still demand 
special privileges, which, however, they would be 
the first to deny to any one else. Democracy in 
the South really means the white man’s party, and 
the Democratic doctrines are those in which it is 


202 THE NEW SOUTH 


thought the majority of the white men of the State 
or section believe for the time. Though the negro 
is no longer a voting power, the malign influence of 
the negro question persists. 

Since the South as a whole favors prohibition of 
the liquor traffic the representatives of the people 
are almost unanimously in favor of prohibition, 
forgetting all constitutional scruples and all ques- 
tions of state rights. The sentiment for woman 
suffrage is not yet overwhelming and consequently, 
as might be surmised, conscientious scruples pre- 
vent representatives from voting for the exten- 
sion of the franchise. In two States, however, the 
friends of woman suffrage, though not strong 
enough to pass a constitutional amendment, have 
realized their aim by a brilliant coup. Since most 
elections are practically settled in the primaries, 
the legislatures of Texas and Arkansas gave women 
the right to vote in such elections. In other words, 
women were given the right to help nominate can- 
didates, though they are excluded from the formal 
elections. Whether these acts will stand in the 
courts has not been determined. Missouri and 
Tennessee have recently given national suffrage te 
women, and Oklahoma has given full suffrage. 

The negro has been practically eliminated as a 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 203 


voter, but the decision of the Supreme Court in the 
Oklahoma case may make necessary the revision of 
some state constitutions. Enough restrictions re- 
main, however, to make white supremacy reason- 
ably secure for the present. As the aim is one 
upon which the white South is practically agreed, 
some other expedients will be devised if those now - 
in use must be discarded. There is absolutely no 
desire for a wholesale restoration of the negro vote, 
though, of course, Republican conventions de- 
nounce the disfranchising acts and constitutional 
amendments. If the control of the Southern 
States should be gained by the Republican party, 
unlimited negro suffrage would hardly be restored 
unless such action were forced by the party in the 
nation at large. In the last extremity the South 
would suffer loss of representation rather than face 
the consequences of unrestricted negro suffrage. 
Socially the South is in a state of ferment. Old 
standards are passing, some of them very rapidly, 
and the younger generation is inclined to smile at 
some of the attitudes of the old. The “typical 
Southerner” who flourishes within the pages of 
F. Hopkinson Smith and Thomas Nelson Page is 
extremely rare outside of them. Most of the real 
Southern colonels are dead, and the others are too 


204 THE NEW SOUTH 


busy running plantations or cotton mills to spend 
much time discussing genealogy, making pretty 
speeches, or taiking about their honor. Not so 
many colonels are made as formerly, and one may 
travel far before he meets an individual who fits 
the popular idea of the type. He is likely to meet 
more men who are cold, hard, and astute, for the 
New South has developed some perfect speci- 
mens of the type whose natural habitat had been 
supposed to be Ulster or the British Midlands — 
religious, narrow, stubborn, and very shrewd. 

A sense of social responsibility is developing in 
the South. Kindness has always been shown to 
the unfortunate and the afflicted, but it has been 
exhibited toward individuals by individuals. Ifa 
Southerner heard of a case of distress in his neigh- 
borhood, he was quick to respond. Real neigh- 
borliness has always existed, but the idea of re- 
sponsibility for a class was slow to develop. Such 
an idea is growing, however. More attention has 
been given to the condition of jails and almshouses 
during the last ten years than in the whole preced- 
ing century. To be sure, the section is now be- 
coming rich enough to afford the luxury of paupers, 
but the interest in socialized humanitarian en- 
deavor lies deeper. Perhaps the fact that negroes 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 205 


formed the larger part of the criminal and depend- 
ent classes had something to do with the past neg- 
lect. The Old Testament doctrine that the crimi- 
nal should suffer the consequences of his act has 
had its effect, and the factor of expense has not 
been forgotten. Some of the States still permit 
county commissioners to commit the care of the 
poor to the lowest bidder. On the other hand the 
-poorhouse has been transformed into a “Home for 
the Aged and Infirm” in some States, and inspec- 
tions of public institutions by the grand jury are 
becoming more than merely cursory. State boards 
of charities are being established, and men have 
even attacked members of their own political par- 
ties on the charge of incompetence, cruelty, or neg- 
lect of duty as keepers of prisons or almshouses. 
Hundreds of towns have their associated charities, 
and scores have visiting nurses. Where there is 
only one nurse, she visits negroes as well as whites, 
but many towns support one or more for negroes 
as well. 

In former days orphans were “bound out,” if no 
relatives would take them, and in that case they 
might not always be properly treated. At the 
present time not only States and municipalities 
support asylums, but religious denominations and 


206 THE NEW SOUTH 


fraternal orders manage many well-conducted in- 
stitutions. The problem of the juvenile delin- 
quent is being recognized, as several States already 
have institutions for his care. So far little has been 
done for the young negro offender, whose home 
training is likely to be most deficient and who 
needs firm but kindly discipline; but the conscious- 
ness of responsibility for him also is developing. 
Increasing prosperity alone cannot account for the 
multiplication of these agencies for social better- 
ment. A new social interest and a new attitude of 
mind are revealed in these activities. 

There are still some communities where social 
position is based upon birth and where the old 
families still control; but these regions are becom- 
ing less numerous. The Old South was never quite 
so aristocratic as the North believed, and today the 
white South is much more nearly a democracy than 
New England. Even in 1860 this was true of some 
parts of the South, as compared with some parts of 
New England. The rural South was always demo- 
cratic except in comparatively limited areas, and 
it is so everywhere today. In those communities 
which have felt the new industrial spirit the ques- 
tion of birth plays little part. Any presentable 
young man can go where he chooses. In such 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 207 


communities the tendency — apparently inevitable 
in industrial societies — to base social distinctions 
upon wealth and business success is beginning to 
show itself. The plutocrats, however, are not yet 
numerous enough to form a society of their own 
and must perforce find their associates among their 
fellow townsmen. 

One does not lose social position in the South by 
engaging in business or by working with his hands. 
It may easily happen that in the afternoon you 
may purchase a collar or a pair of shoes from a 
young man whom you will meet in the evening at 
the house of the local magnate. The granddaugh- 
ter of a former governor or justice of the Supreme 
Court comes home from her typewriter and her 
brother from the cotton mill or the lumber yard. 
Social life in a small town — and most Southern 
towns are small — is simple and unpretentious, al- 
though here too the influence of prosperity is be- 
ginning to be manifest. Social affairs are more 
elaborate than they were ten or fifteen years ago, 
and there is also less casual expression of informal 
hospitality. The higher prices of food and the 
increasing difficulties of the servant problem have 
doubtless put some restraint upon the spirit of 
hospitality but perhaps more important is the fact 


208 THE NEW SOUTH 


that more of the men must keep regular hours of 
business and that women are developing interests 
outside the home. 

Social affairs are almost entirely in the hands of 
women. The older men come somewhat unwill- 
ingly to receptions in the evening, but the presence 
of a man at an afternoon tea is unusual. The 
Southerner of the small towns and cities puts away 
play with his adolescence. The professional man 
seldom advertises the fact that he has gone hunt- 
ing or fishing for a day or a week, as it is thought to 
be not quite the thing for a lawyer to be away from 
his office for such a purpose. Golf has gained no 
foothold except in the larger towns, and even there 
the existence of the country club is often precari- 
ous. Few males except college youths will be seen 
on the tennis court, if indeed there be one even in 
a town of five thousand people. Professional men 
keep long hours, though they might be able to 
do all their work in half the time they spend in 
their offices. 

The theory of the Old South contemplated differ- 
ent spheres of activity for men and women. The 
combined influence of St. Paul and Sir Walter 
Scott is responsible for a part of this theory, though 
its development was probably inevitable from the 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 209 


structure of society in the Old South. A woman’s 
place was the home. As a girl she might live for en- 
joyment and spend her time in a round of visits, but 
she was expected to give up frivolity of all sorts 
when she married. Society in the South was al- 
most entirely the concern of the unmarried. Wom- 
en seldom took a prominent part in any organi- 
zation, and a woman speaking in public was re- 
garded as a great curiosity. Not so many years 
ago the missionary society, and perhaps the par- 
sonage aid society, were almost the only organiza- 
tions in which women tooka part. Inrecent years 
church and educational organizations have mul- 
tiplied, and today there are numerous women’s 
clubs devoted to many different objects. South- 
ern women are active in civic leagues, associated 
charities, and other forms of community endeavor; 
they are prominent in various patriotic societies; 
and there are many suffrage societies. Where the 
laws permit, women are members of school boards; 
they often head organizations of teachers com- 
posed of both men and women, and at least one 
woman has been chosen mayor of a town. 
Women have done more than the men to keep 
alive in the South the memories of the past. Per- 


haps because the women of the older generation 
14 


210 THE NEW SOUTH 


suffered more than the men, they have been less 
willing to forget, and their daughters have imbibed 
some of the same feeling. The Daughters of the 
Confederacy have been more bitter than the Sons 
of Veterans or than the veterans themselves. The 
effect of recent events upon their psychology has 
been interesting. In the Great War their sons and 
grandsons were called to go overseas, and the na- 
tional government was brought closer to them than 
at any other time for more than forty years. It is 
idle to insist that before this there had been any 
ardent affection in the South for the United States. 
There had been acceptance of the national situa- 
tion, perhaps an intellectual acknowledgment that 
all may have been for the best, but no warm na- 
tionalism had been developed before the Great War 
came. Loyalty was passive rather than active. 
The closing of the chasm has been hailed many 
times, notably at the time of the Spanish War, but 
no keen observer has been deceived for a moment. 
The recent world crisis, however, seems to have 
swept aside all hindrances. Perhaps the people, 
and particularly the women, were unconsciously 
yearning for a country to love and were ready for 
a great wave of patriotism to carry them with it. 
During the week following the declaration of war 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 211 


more national flags were displayed in the South 
than had been shown in the memory of the oldest 
resident, for except on public buildings the national 
flag has not been commonly displayed. At this 
time houses which had never shown a flag were 
draped, and merchants were chided because they 
could not supply the demand. 

Quite as a matter of course the president of the 
Daughters of the Confederacy became president of 
the Red Cross Auxiliary which was organized at 
once. Women were eager to receive instruction in 
folding bandages, and knitting became the order of 
the day. Women threw themselves with all their 
energy into various activities. Canteen work was 
organized if the town was a junction point, and 
every instalment of “selected men’ — for the 
word “drafted” was rejected almost by common 
consent — was sent away with some evidence of 
the thoughtfulness of the women of their home 
town. Women have been prominent in raising 
money for the Red Cross and the Y. M. C. A. and 
have done valiant service in selling War Savings 
Stamps and Liberty Bonds. There has been some 
shaking of heads, and some exponents of the shel- 
tered life have criticized this invasion of what had 
been supposed to be the sphere of men, but the 


212 THE NEW SOUTH 


women have gone ahead. Indeed their alacrity 
has seemed to indicate that they are glad to have 
an excuse to throw aside the restraints which have 
hitherto bound them. Women and girls have ap- 
proached men whom they did not know on the 
streets to ask for contributions or to urge the pur- 
chase of stamps or bonds, and only those who know 
the South can realize what a departure from tradi- 
tional standards of feminine conduct such actions 
indicate. The business woman has been a familiar 
figure for years, but she was sheltered by the walls 
of her office or shop. On the street she was held to 
a certain code and was criticized if she failed to 
observe it. But here also the old order is changing 
and giving place to new. 

The power of public opinion is very great in the 
South. While this may be true of rural or semi- 
rural communities in any part of the land, nowhere 
else does collective opinion exert such overwhelm- 
ing force as in the Southern States. Perhaps this 
phenomenon is a survival from Reconstruction 
days and after. Since certain attitudes toward the 
negro, for example, were defended on the ground of 
the necessity of protecting womanhood, a certain 
standard must be demanded from women, and 
every man claimed a sort of prescriptive right to 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 213 


assist in laying down rules for such conduct on her 
part. For a long time the women of the South, 
consciously or unconsciously, were subject to these 
unwritten rules. Today in increasing numbers the 
women, particularly the younger women, are de- 
claring their independence by their conduct. It 
has not become a feminist revolt, for many have not 
thought out the situation and have not recognized 
the source of their restrictions. The statutes of 
some of the Southern States, moreover, still con- 
tain many of the old common law restrictions upon 
women’s independence of action. More and more 
women are asserting themselves, however, and are 
demanding the right to guide themselves. The 
negro woman has been held up as the reason for 
denying the vote to the white woman, but this ex- 
cuse no longer is accepted willingly. Women are 
inquiring why the vote of the negro women should 
be any more of a menace than the vote of the negro 
man, and there seems to be no satisfactory answer. 
If the women make up their minds and agree, they 
will gain their ends. 

Though women in the South as elsewhere form a 
majority of the church membership, they have not 
had equal rights in church administration. Dur- 
ing 1918, several denominations granted full laity 


214 THE NEW SOUTH 


rights, though the bishops of the Southern Method- 
ist Church referred the action of the General Con- 
ference back to the Annual Conferences. This is 
of course only a temporary delay. An unusually 
large percentage of the adult population holds 
membership in one or other of the Protestant de- 
nominations. The Roman Catholics are reported 
as being in a majority in Louisiana, as might be 
expected owing to French descent, and in Ken- 
tucky, Delaware, Maryland, and Texas the pro- 
portion is considerable. It is less in Arkansas, 
Oklahoma, and West Virginia. In Virginia, North 
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mis- 
sissippi, and Tennessee, the proportion of Catholics 
is still smaller, though the latest (1918) official 
Catholic statistics for the seven States last named 
show 7 bishops, 415 priests, 635 churches, and 211,- 
000 Catholics. The principal denominational af- 
filiations of the Southern people, white and black, 
are with the various Baptist or Methodist bodies, 
with a strong Presbyterian influence. In eleven of 
the Southern States the Baptists are by far the 
largest denomination, though the Methodists lead 
in two. These two denominations taken together 
are in a large majority in every State except Dela- 
ware, Maryland, and Louisiana. Presbyterians 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 215 


and Episcopalians are well distributed throughout 
the whole section and have exercised an influence 
altogether out of proportion to their numbers. 
Presbyterianism came in with the great Scotch- 
Irish migration of the eighteenth century, and 
though many of the blood have gone over to other 
denominations, the influence of the Shorter Cate- 
chism still persists. In the older States attempts 
were made to establish the Anglican Church in 
the colonial era, and the governing classes were 
naturally affiliated with it. 

Both these organizations had to give way to the 
great wave of religious enthusiasm which swept the 
section early in the nineteenth century. Baptist 
and Methodist missionaries, many of them unlet- 
tered but vigorous and powerful, went into the 
remotest districts and swept the population into 
theircommunions. They preached a narrow, strait- 
laced, Old Testament religion, but it went deep. 
They believed in the verbal inspiration of the Bible, 
and so far as they could they interpreted it literally, 
laying emphasis upon the future, the rewards of the 
righteous, and the tortures of the damned. Life 
upon this earth was regarded as simply a prepara- 
tion for the life to come. One is sometimes tempted 
to believe that these spiritual guides deprecated 


216 THE NEW SOUTH ‘ 


attempts to improve conditions here on earth lest 
men should grow to.think less of a future abode. 
It is easy to understand why such a doctrine of 
future reward should have appealed to negroes, and 
it is perhaps not surprising that the poor upon the 
frontier likewise found comfort and solace in it. 
Years ago the social position of the great majority 
of the Methodists and Baptists was distinctly be- 
low that of the Episcopalians and Presbyterians. 
In recent years many Methodists and Baptists have 
grown prosperous. Instead of being bare barns, 
their church edifices are often the most ornate and 
costly i in the town or city. A Methodist or a Bap- 
tist can have none of the former feeling of mar- 
tyrdom now, when in numbers and wealth his 
denomination is so powerful.* 

Though the evangelical religious teaching of for- 
mer days has been modified and softened, it has 
been softened only and not superseded. The re- 
sult of this emphasis upon the other world has been 
to make men look somewhat askance at worldly 


« Except these five, other church organizations have few members. 
There are a few Congregationalists, almost entirely the result of post- 
bellum missions to the negroes. White and negro Lutheran churches 
are scattered through the Southern States, and in Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee the Disciples are important. Here and there other denom- 
inations have gained a foothold, but their numbers are insignificant 
in the South as a whole. 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY Q17 


amusement. The idea so prevalent in other sec- 
tions that the people of the South are convivial and 
mercurial in temperament is erroneous. It would 
be more nearly correct to say that gravity, amount- 
ing almost to austerity, is a distinguishing mark of 
Southerners. In any Southern gathering repre- 
senting the people as a whole there is little mirth. 
There is much more Puritanism in the South today 
than remains in New England. The Sabbath is no 
longer observed so strictly as twenty years ago, 
perhaps, but only recently has it been considered 
proper to receive visits on Sunday or to drive into 
the country. As for Sunday golf or tennis, the 
average community would stand horror-struck at 
-suchaspectacle. Sermons are frequently preached 
against dancing, card-playing, and theater-going, 
and members have been dismissed from Baptist, 
Methodist, and Presbyterian churches for indulging 
in these forbidden amusements. 

The older generation, however, is losing in the 
fight to maintain the old standards of conduct and 
belief. In spite of disapprobation, bridge clubs 
flourish and the young people will dance and go to 
the theater, though even yet most Southern cities 
are known as “‘poor show towns.” ‘Today men go 
to the post office on Sunday, read the Sunday 


218 THE NEW SOUTH 


papers, and ride on Sunday trains. The motor car 
makes its appearance on Sunday, though it would 
be interesting to know how many of those riding 
really feel conscience free, for many who have 
liberal ideas still have Calvinistic nerves. Young 
ministers occasionally preach sermons for which 
they would have been charged with heresy not 
many years ago and openly read books which would 
have been considered poisonous then. Men speak 
of evolution now and show familiarity with authors 
who were anathema to the older generation. 

Lately some of the town and city churches have 
been developing the social and humanitarian side 
of religious work, but the greatest number manage 
to collect only enough money to keep the organiza- 
tion alive. They are like engines which can get up 
enough steam to turn the wheels slowly and pain- 
fully but lack sufficient power to do effective work. 
In fact, there is strong opposition to any pastor 
who attempts to influence the decision of the 
congregation on any social question. Many towns 
and rural communities have several churches, 
though their population and wealth may be hardly 
large enough to support one properly. This condi- 
tion, however, is not peculiar totheSouth. Hereand 
there in the country districts a new type of pastor 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 219 


has appeared. He is a good farmer himself, in- 
terested in better farming and able to discuss ferti- 
lizers and methods with his parishioners. He is not 
afraid that prosperity will turn his members away 
from their church duties but considers that im- 
proving the economic conditions of the neighbor- 
hood is quite as vital a part of his work as minister- 
ing to their spiritual needs. Largely because of 
the work of some of these men the exodus to the 
towns has slackened in some neighborhoods and 
contributions to the work of the church have been 
greatly increased. 

This movement from country to town has be- 
come a serious matter in some localities. The 
social level of neighborhoods once attractive be- 
cause of the presence of families of intelligence 
and character has fallen. The land of the fami- 
lies which have moved to towns has been turned 
over to tenants, either whites of a lower status 
or negroes, the standards of the community have 
suffered in consequence, and the atmosphere of 
some of these communities has become depressing. 
Such conditions, however, are not peculiar to the 
South but have been observed in central New York 
and in New England. Better roads, the motor 
car, and improvement in communications have 


220 THE NEW SOUTH 


helped to check this cityward movement, and, on 
the whole, the educational, economic, and social 
standards of the country districts generally are 
higher than they were ten years ago. 

Generally speaking, the South is a law-abiding 
section. This is true even when the negroes are 
included, and as the prohibitory laws are enforced 
more strictly, it is becoming increasingly true. The 
chain gang which was so common years ago has 
been discontinued in hundreds of counties, chiefly 
for lack of convicts, though partly for humanitarian 
reasons. ‘The offenses of the negro were, for the 
most part, petty larceny, gambling, and offenses 
against public order. Affrays are certainly less 
frequent since the spread of prohibition, and lar- 
ceny seems to be decreasing, though statistics of 
crime are few and unreliable. The gambling is 
usually nothing more than “craps,” or ‘African 
billiards” as they call it now. Among the whites, 
offenses against property are few. In many rural 
counties a white man is seldom charged with theft, 
fraud, or forgery. A white man is occasionally 
arraigned for “disposing of mortgaged property,” 
or for malicious mischief, including the destruction 
of property. 

The homicide rate, however, is high. Generally 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 221 


the figures given include the negro, and he is some- 
what more homicidal than the white, but the white 
rate is among the highest in the world. Blood 
feuds actually exist in the Southern Appalachians, 
though perhaps their number is not so large as is 
commonly believed. The moonshiner’s antipathy 
to revenue officers leads him to use firearms upon 
occasion, but homicide occurs aiso in intelligent 
communities where the general tone is high. In- 
dividuals of excellent standing in business or pro- 
fessional life sometimes shoot to kill their fellows 
and in the past have usually escaped the extreme 
penalty and often have avoided punishment al- 
together. It would seem that life is held rather 
cheaply in many Southern communities. 

Until recently much of the South has remained a 
frontier, as some of it is to this day, and in frontier 
communities men are accustomed to take the law 
into their own hands and are reluctant to depend 
upon inadequate or ineffective police protection. 
Despising physical cowardice, the individual prides 
himself upon his ability to maintain his rights and 
to protect his honor without calling for assistance. 
Frontiersmen are quick to resent an affront, and 
when their veracity is impugned they fight. The 
word “lie” is not considered a polite mode of 


222 THE NEW SOUTH 


expressing dissent. All over the South, in every 
class of society, one finds this sensitiveness to an 
accusation of lack of veracity. Such a theory of 
life dies hard. The presence of a less advanced 
race is perhaps not conducive to self-control. The 
dominant race, determined to maintain its position 
of superiority, is likely to resent a real or fancied 
affront to its dignity. A warped sense of honor, a 
sort of belated theory of chivalry, is responsible for 
some acts of violence. A seducer is likely to be 
called to account and the slayer, by invoking 
the “unwritten law,” has usually been acquitted. 
Such a case lends itself to the display of flamboy- 
ant oratory, and the plea of “protecting the home” 
has set many murderers free. Perhaps the South 


is becoming less susceptible to oratory; at all events 


this plea now sometimes fails to win a jury. De- 
fendants are occasionally convicted, though the 
verdicts are usually rendered for manslaughter and 
not for murder. 

Public sentiment is not yet ready, however, to 
declare every intentional homicide murder. Some 
point to the low rate of white illegitimacy as a 
justification of the deterring force of the “un- 
written law,”’ not realizing that such a defense is 
really a reflection upon womanhood. Others allow 


» 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 223 


their detestation of physical cowardice to blind 
them to the danger of allowing men to take the law 
into their own hands. The individualism of the 
imperfectly socialized Southerner does not yet per- 
mit him to think of the law as a majestic, imper- 
sonal force towering high above the individual. It 
is true that the Southerner is law-abiding on the 
whole, but he usually obeys the laws because they 
represent his ethical concepts and not because of 
devotion to the abstract idea of law. 

There is danger, however, in the attempt to 
state dogmatically what the Southerner thinks or 
believes. There is much diversity of opinion 
among the younger Southerners, for many ques- 
tions are in a state of flux, and there is as yet no 
point of crystallization. There is no leader either 
in politics or in journalism who may be said to 
utter the voice of the South. In the earlier part 
of this period Henry Watterson, of the Louisville 
Courier-Journal, spoke almost with authority. The 
untimely death of Henry W. Grady, editor of the 
Atlanta Constitution, deprived the South of a 
spokesman and he has had no successor. There 
is no newspaper which has any considerable influ- 
ence outside the State in which it is published, and 
few have a circulation throughout even their entire 


224. THE NEW SOUTH 


State. There are several newspapers which are 
edited with considerable ability, on the political 
side at least, but none has a circulation sufficiently 
large to make it a real power. All are more or less 
parochial. The country papers, which are frankly 
and necessarily local, exercise more influence than 
the papers of the cities, though the circulation of 
the latter is increasing. 

The Southerner is reading more than he once did. 
Some of the national weeklies have a considerable 
circulation in the South, and the national maga- 
zines are read in increasing numbers. Good book- 
stores are not common, for the people generally 
have not learned to buy many books since they have 
been able to afford them. The women’s clubs, 
however, interest their members in the “best-sell- 
ers” and pass these books from one to another. 
Some members may always be depended upon to 
purchase serious books as their contribution to the 
club. The number of public libraries in the South 
is considerable, and the educational administra- 
tion of several of the States is striving to put a 
well-selected library into every public school.: 

* North Carolina has established over five thousand of these schoo! 
libraries. The State pays one-third of the cost, the county one-third, 


and the patrons of the school the remainder. Additional volumes are 
furnished by the same plan. 


THE SOUTH OF TODAY 225 


The Southerner is not only reading more books, 
but he isalso writing more. A man or woman who 
has written a book is no longer a curiosity. Inthe 
closing decade or two of the nineteenth century 
the work of a group of Southern writers led a dis- 
tinguished critic to rank them as the most signifi- 
cant force in American letters. Such a high valua- 
tion of the writers of the present day could hardly 
be made, but there is a much larger number than 
formerly whose work is acceptable. Members of 
college faculties, and others, produce annually 
numerous books of solid worth in science, history, 
biography, economics, and sociology. Volumes of 
recollections and reminiscences interesting to the 
student of the past appear, and much local and 
state history has been rescued from oblivion. Some 
theological books are written, but there is little 
published on national questions. The output of 
verse is small, and few essays are published. As 
few Southerners are extensive travelers, there are 
necessarily few books of travel and description. 
Though most of the people live m a rural or semi- 
rural environment, very little is printed dealing 
with nature. There are many writers of fiction, 
though few can be called artists. 

The New South is full of contradictions and 


is 


226 THE NEW SOUTH 


paradoxes. It is living generations of social and 
economic changes in decades, and naturally all the 
people do not keep an even pace. One may find 
culture that would grace a court alongside incredi- 
ble ignorance; distinguished courtesy and sheer 
brutality; kindness and consideration of the rights 
and feelings of others together with cruelty almost 
unbelievable. In some sections are to be found 
machines belonging to the most advanced stage 
of industry, while nearby are in operation economic 
processes of the rudest and most primitive sort. 
One who knows the South must feel, however, that 
its most striking characteristic is hopefulness. 
The dull apathy of a generation ago is rapidly dis- 
appearing, and the South lifts up its eyes toward 
the future. 


THE REPUDIATION OF STATE DEBTS 


Tze debt of Mississippi was small and that of Texas 
Was not excessive, and neither made any attempt to 
repudiate the obligations. The $4,000,000 issued m 
Florida for state aid to railroads was large for the small 
population and the scanty resources of that Staite, but 
this issue was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme 
Court of Florida. The Reconstruction debt of Alabama 
was large, about $20,000,000, besides accrued interest 
which the State could not pay. In 1873, the carpet- 


- bag government attempted to fund these bonds at 


twenty-five cents on the dollar. The Funding Act of 
1876 repudiated $4,700,000 outright, reduced the bonds 
loaned io one railroad from $5,300,000 to $1,000,000, 
gave land im payment of $2,000,000 more, scaled other 
bonds one-half, and funded still others at par excludmg 
interest. About $13,000,000 in all was repudiated and 
the State was left with a debt of less than $10,000,000.* 
During 1868 and 1869 bond issues to the amount of 
nearly $28,000,000 were authorized m North Carolina, 
but not all of this amount was issued. From the 
$13,313,000 which was outstanding ait the end of the 
earpetbag régime. the State had received little or no 
benefit. Interest was not paid upon this sum or upon 
= W. A Scott, The Repudiation of State Debts, p. 63, but sce also 


W. L. Plemme Cred Wear and Reconstruction ix Alabama, p. 550 ©. 
27 


228 THE NEW SOUTH 


the previous issues, and the total debt increased rap- 
idly. Unsuccessful attempts to compromise with the cred- 
itors were made in 1874 and 1875, but not until 1879 
was the matter settled. The Reconstruction bonds were 
repudiated outright, and the legitimate debt of the 
State was funded at from fifteen to forty cents on the 
dollar. No provision was made for the unpaid interest. 
This compromise did not include the pre-war bonds 
issued to aid the North Carolina Railroad. This cor- 
poration was a going concern, and as the result of a suit 
the stock had been sequestrated. A compromise with 
the holders of these bonds was made at eighty per cent 
of par and interest. As a result of this wholesale re- 
pudiation the debt of the State was so reduced that it 
could be carried. In all over $22,000,000 besides other 
millions of accrued interest were repudiated.* 

Not all of the creditors of the State accepted the com- 
promise at once, but the offer was left open and, as the 
years went on and the State showed no signs of a change 
of intention, the bondholders gradually recognized the 
inevitable. In 1893, nearly fifteen years after this offer 
had been made, more than $1,000,000 of the old bonds 
were still outstanding. In 1901, a New York firm pre- 
sented to the State of South Dakota ten of the class 
which had been made convertible at twenty-five cents 
on the dollar. That State brought suit in the Supreme 
Court of the United States and collected the amount 
sued for.? No progress has been made in collecting the 
special tax bonds issued during Reconstruction though 
some New York bond houses hope against hope, and the 


1 J. G. de R. Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina, pp. 448- 


449. 659-661. 
2 South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U. S. Rep., p. 286. 


THE REPUDIATION OF STATE DEBTS 229 


Council of the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders in 
its annual reports plaintively regrets the perversity of 
this and other Southern States. 

South Carolina presented such a carnival of incom- 
petence and corruption that the total amount of bonds 
issued has never been accurately determined. Appar- 
ently there was a valid debt of about $6,666,000 in 1868, 
which was increased to about $29,000,000 within three 
years. The carpetbag Legislature of 1873 repudiated 
$6,000,000 of this uebt, and attempted to compromise 
the remainder at fifty per cent, but the State could not 
carry even this reduced amount. Judicial decisions de- 
stroyed the validity of some millions more, and finally 
the debt, reduced to something more than $7,000,000, 
was funded. The debt of Georgia was increased di- 
rectly and by indorsement of railroad bonds. The 
Legislature of 1872 declared $8,500.000 void and in 
1875 repudiated about $600,000 more. 

Louisiana suffered most from excessive taxation. At 
the beginning of the carpetbag period the debt was 
about $11,000,000, but railroad and levee bonds were 
issued rapidly. Though a constitutional amendment in 
1870 forbade the State to contract debts in excess of 
$25,000,000, the Legislature went steadily on until in 
1872 the debt was variously estimated at from $41,000,- 
000 to $48,000,000. In 1874, when W. P. Kellogg was 
Governor, the State began to fund valid obligations at 
sixty cents on the dollar. By action of the courts the 
debt was reduced to about $12,000,000 bearing inter- 
estat seven percent. The State could not pay the inter- 
est on this sum, and the constitutional convention of 
1879 made drastic reductions in the interest rate. Both 
New York and New Hampshire, acting ostensibly for 


230 THE NEW SOUTH 


themselves but really in behalf of their citizens, brought 
suit, but the Supreme Court threw out the cases on the 
ground that the actions were attempts to evade the con- 
stitutional provision forbidding a citizen to bring an ac- 
tion against a State. The bondholders still refused to 
accept the reduction, and the Supreme Court in 1883 
described the ordinance as a violation of the contract of 
1874 but a violation without a remedy. Meanwhile — 
the Legislature, after consultation with the bondholders, 
had agreed to a slight increase in the rate of interest; and 
in 1884, this compromise was ratified by an amendment 
to the constitution. 

The debt of Arkansas was not so difficult to settle. 
The issue of about $7,500,000 for railroads and levees 
during Reconstruction was declared unconstitutional in 
1877-78, and the so-called Holford bonds, issued in aid 
of banks, were repudiated by the constitutional conven- 
tion of 1884. The total amount repudiated and de- 
clared void by the courts was nearly $13,000,000. Ten- 
nessee also struggled with a debt which it was unwilling 
and perhaps unable to pay. The amount, which in 
1861 was about $21,000,000, incurred principally in aid 
of railroads and turnpikes, was largely increased under 
Republican rule, and most of the money received for the 
bonds was stolen or wasted. No interest had been paid 
during the War, and the accrued interest was funded 
in 1865, 1869, and 1873. The debt was somewhat re- 
duced by permitting the railroads to pay their debt in 
state bonds which they purchased cheaply on the mar- 
ket. Other defaulting railroads were sold, but the State 
still could not meet the interest. Many discussions 
with the creditors were held, but the people had the 
idea that much of the debt was fraudulent and they 


THE REPUDIATION OF STATE DEBTS 231 


consequently voted down proposals which they thought 
too liberal to the creditors. The question temporarily 
split the Democratic party, but after much discussion a 
long act was passed in 1883 which finally settled the 
matter. A part of the debt, with interest, was funded 
at 76 to 80 cents on the dollar. The major part was 
funded at 50 cents on the dollar with interest thereafter 
at three per cent. 

The financial difficulties of Virginia excited more in- 
terest than did those of any other commonwealth, for 
this State had the largest pre-war debt. Its $33,000,000 
with accrued interest had amounted to about $45,000,- 
000 in 1870. In 1871 the question of settlement was 
taken up; one-third of the debt was assigned to West 
Virginia, and the remainder was funded into new bonds 
bearing interest at five and six per cent. The coupons 
were made receivable for taxes and other debts due 
the State. The amount recognized was beyond the 
ability of the State to pay, and many members of 
both parties felt that some compromise must be made. 
So many of the coupons were paid in for taxes that 
money to keep the Government going was found with 
difficulty. Various attacks on the privilege were made, 
but these “coupon killers” were usually declared un- 
constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United 
States. Meanwhile the contest had split the State. 
Some were in favor of paying the whole debt accord- 
ing to the agreement of 1871; others wished to re- 
duce the interest rate; while the radicals wished to 
repudiate part of the debt and reduce the rate of 
interest upon the remainder. The last named faction, 
under the leadership of H. H. Riddleberger, organized 
a political party known as the Readjusters and in 1879 


232 THE NEW SOUTH 


captured the Legislature. Riddleberger then introduced 
a bill which scaled down the debt to less than $20,000,- 
000, but it was vetoed by the Governor. Two years 
later the new party captured both Governorship and 
Legislature and sent General William Mahone to the 
United States Senate, where he usually voted with the 
Republican party. 

The Legislature repassed the Riddleberger bill, which 
the creditors refused to accept, and an ingenious “cou- 
pon killer.” Similar acts were passed in 1886 and 
1887. The United States Supreme Court, before which 
these acts were brought, pronounced them unconstitu- 
tional in that they impaired the obligation of contracts, 
but the Court also stated that there was no way in 
which the State could be coerced. Meanwhile the 
credit of the State was nonexistent, and all business 
suffered. In 1890 a commission reported in favor of 
compromising the debt on the lines of the Riddleberger 
Act and, in 1892, $19,000,000 in new bonds were ex- 
changed for about $28,000,000 of tke older issue. In- 
terest was to be 2 per cent for ten years and then 3 per 
cent for ninety more. 

West Virginia steadfastly refused to recognize the 
share of the debt assigned to her on the ground that the 
principal part had been incurred for internal improve- 
ments in Virginia proper, and that one-third was an ex- 
cessive proportion. The matter dragged along until 
the Supreme Court of the United States decided in 
March, 1911, that the equitable proportion due by West 
Virginia was 23.5 per cent instead of one-third. West 
Virginia, however, made no move to carry out the deci- 
sion, and in 1914 Virginia asked the Court to proceed to 
a final decree. A special master was appointed to take 


THE REPUDIATION OF STATE DEBTS 233 


testimony, and on June 14, 1915, the Supreme Court 
announced that the net share of West Virginia was 
$12,393,929 plus $8,178,000 interest. The State, by 
a compromise with Virginia in 1919, assumed a debt 
amounting to $14,500,000. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


Many of the references for the period of Reconstruc- 
tion are also valuable for the subject of this volume, as 
it is impossible to understand the South today with- 
out understanding the period which preceded it. Much 
enlightening material is to be found in W. L. Flem- 
ing’s Decumentary History of Reconstruction (2 vols., 
1906-07) and in the series of monographs on Recon- 
struction published by the students of Professor W. A. 
Dunning of Columbia University, among which may 
be mentioned J. W. Garner’s Reconstruction in Mis- 
sissippi (1901); W. L. Fleming’s Civil War and Recon- 
struction in Alabama (1905); J. G. de R. Hamilton’s 
Reconstruction in North Carolina (1914); C. M. Thomp- 
son’s Reconstruction in Georgia, Economic, Social, 
Political, 1865-1872 (1915). 


GENERAL WorKS 


Some of the older books are interesting from the 
historical standpoint, but conditions in the South have 
changed so rapidly that these works give little help in 
understanding the present. Among the most interest- 
ing are A. W. Tourgée’s Appeal to Caesar (1884), 
based upon the belief that the South would soon be 

235 


236 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


overwhelmingly black. Alexander K. McClure, in 
The South; its Industrial, Financial and Political Condi- 
tion (1886), was one of the first to take a hopeful view 
of the economic development of the Southern States. 
W. D. Kelley’s The Old South and the New (1887) con- 
tains the observations of a shrewd Pennsylvania poli- 
tician who was intensely interested in the economic 
development of the United States. Walter H. Page’s 
The Rebuilding of Old Commonwealths (1902) is a keen 
analysis of the factors which have hindered progress 
in the South. 

No recent work fully covers this period. Most 
books deal chiefly with individual phases of the ques- 
tion. Some valuable material may be found in the 
series The South in the Building of the Nation, 13 vols., 
(1909-13) but not all of this information is trustworthy. 
The Inbrary of Southern Literature (16 vols., 1907- 
1913), edited by E. A. Alderman and Joel Chandler 
Harris, contains selections from Southern authors and 
biographical notes. Albert Bushnell Hart’s The South- 
ern South (1910) is the result of more study and in- 
vestigation than any other Northerner has given to 
the sociology of the South, but the author’s prejudices 
interfere with the value of his conclusions. The late 
Edgar Gardner Murphy in Problems of the Present 
South (1904) discusses with wisdom and sanity many 
Southern questions which are still undecided. A 
series of valuable though unequal papers is The New 
South in the Annals of the American Academy of Politi- 
cal and Social Science, vol. 35 (1910). Another co- 
operative work which contains material of value is 
Studies in Southern History and Politics, edited by J. 
W. Garner (1914). Why the Solid South, edited by H. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 237 


A. Herbert (1890), should also be consulted. A bitter 
arraignment of the South as a whole is H. E. Tremain’s 
Sectionalism Unmasked (1907). The best book on the 
Appalachian South is Horace Kephart’s Our Southern 
Highlanders (1913). William Garrott Brown’s The 
Lower South in American History (1902) contains some 
interesting matter. 


Economic DEVELOPMENT 


There are several excellent works on cotton and the 
cotton trade, chief among which are M. B. Ham- 
mond’s The Cotton Industry (1897) and C. W. Burkett 
and C. H. Poe’s Cotton, its Cultivation, Marketing, 
Manufacture, and the Problems of the Cotton World 
(1906). D. A. Tompkins, in Cotton and Cotton Oil 
(1901), gives valuable material but is rather discursive. 
J. A. B. Scherer, in Cotton as a World Power (1916), at- 
tempts to show the influence of cotton upon history. 
Holland Thompson in From the Cotton Field to the Cot- 
ton Mill (1906) deals with the economic and social 
changes arising from the development of manufactur- 
ing in an agricultural society. With this may be men- 
tioned A. Kohn’s The Cotton Mills of South Carolina 
(1907). M. T. Copeland’s The Cotton Manufacturing 
Industry of the United States (1912) has some interest- 
ing chapters on the South. T. M. Young, an English 
labor leader, in The American Cotton Industry (1903), 
brings a fresh point of view. The files of the Manu- 
facturer’s Record (Baltimore) are indispensable to a 
student of the economic progress of the South. 


238 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


THE NEGRo QUESTION 


The number of books, pamphlets, and special articles 
upon this subject, written by Northerners, Southern- 
ers, negroes, and even foreigners, is enormous. These 
publications range from displays of hysterical emo- 
tionalism to statistical studies, but no one book can 
treat fully all phases of so complex a question. Bib- 
lhographies have been prepared by W. E. B. Du Bois, 
A. P. C. Griffin, and others. W. L. Fleming has ap- 
pended a useful list of titles to Reconstruction of the 
Seceded States (1905). 

F. L. Hoffman, a professional statistician of German 
birth, in Race Traits and Tendencies of the American 
Negro (1896), has collected much valuable material but 
all his conclusions cannot be accepted without ques- 
tion. Special Bulletins on the negro are published by 
the United States Census Bureau, of which the issues 
for 1904 and 1915 should especially be consulted. 
Some of the Publications of Atlanta University contain 
valuable studies of special localities or occupations. 

Several negroes have written histories of their race. 
George W. Williams’s History of the Negro Race in 
America from 1619 to 1880, 2 vols. (1883), is old but 
contains material of value. William H. Thomas, in The 
American Negro (1901), is pessimistic as to the future be- 
cause of the moral delinquencies of his people. Booker 
T. Washington’s The Story of the Negro, the Rise of the 
Race from Slavery (1909), on the other hand, empha- 
sizes achievements rather than deficiencies and is opti- 
mistic in tone. Of this writer’s several other books, 
the Future of the American Negro (1899) is the most 
valuable. Kelly Miller has written Race Adjustment 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 239 


(1908) and An Appeal to Conscience (1918). besides 

many articles and monographs all marked by excellent 
temper. On the other hand, W. E. B. Du Bois, in 
The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and in his other writ- 
ings, voices the bitterness of one to whom the color line 
has proved an “intolerable indignity.” 

Ray Stannard Baker in Following the Color Line 
(1908) gives the observations of a trained metropolitan 
journalist and is eminently sane in treatment. Wil- 
liam Archer, the English author and journalist ex- 
presses a European point of view in Through Afro- 
America (1910). Carl Kelsey’s The Negro Farmer 
(1903) is a careful study of agricultural conditions in 
eastern Virginia. A collection of valuable though un- 
equal papers is contained in the Annals of the Ameri- 
can Academy of Political and Social Science under The 
Negro’s Progress in Fifty Years, No. 138 (1913) and 
America’s Race Problem (1901). 

One of the first Southerners to attack the new prob- 
lem was A. G. Haygood, later a Bishop of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, South, who published Our 
Brother in Black, His Freedom and His Future (1881). 
P. A. Bruce, in The Plantation Negro as a Freeman 
(1888), has done an excellent piece of work. Thomas 
Nelson Page, in The Negro, The Southerner’s Problem 
(1904), holds that no good can come through outside 
interference. William B. Smith’s The Color Line 
(1905) takes the position that the negro is fundament- 
ally different from the white. Alfred Holt Stone, in 
Studies in the American Race Problem (1908), has given 
a record of his experiences and reflections as a cotton 
planter in the delta region of Mississippi, while Pa- 
tience Pennington (pseud.) in A Woman Rice-Planier 


240 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


(1913) gives in the form of a diary a naive but fasci- 
nating account of life in the lowlands of South Caro- 
lina. Edgar Gardner Murphy, whose Problems of the 
Present South has already been mentioned, discuss- 
es in The Basis of Ascendancy (1909) the proper re- 
lations of black and white. The title of Gilbert T. 
Stephenson’s Race Distinctions in American Law (1910) 
is self-explanatory. 


EDUCATION 


No complete history of education in the South has 
been written. The United States Bureau of Educa- 
tion published years ago several monographs upon the 
separate States. Edgar W. Knight has written an excel- 
lent history of Public School Education in North Caro- 
lina (1916). Carter G. Woodson, The Education of the 
Negro Prior to 1861 (1915), E. A. Alderman’s J. L. M. 
Curry, a Biography (1911), and R. D. W. Connor and 
C. W. Poe’s Life and Speeches of Charles Brantley Ay- 
cock (1912) are illuminating. J.L.M.Curry’s A Brief 
Sketch of George Peabody and a History of the Peabody 
Education Fund through Thirty Years (1898) gives an 
excellent idea of the situation after Reconstruction. 
The General Education Board; an Account of its Activi- 
ties, 1902-1914 (1915) contains interesting facts on 
the educational situation of today. The reports of the 
state Departments of Education, of the United States 
Bureau of Education, of the Conference for Education 
in the South, and of the Peabody, Slater, and Jeanes 
Funds should be consulted. The two volumes on N egro 
Education, United States Bureau of Education Bulle- 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 241 


tins Nos. 38 and 39 (1916) are invaluable. There are 
also histories of some of the state universities and of 
the church and private schools. 


Fiction 


Some of the best historical material on the changing 
South is in the form of fiction. A number of gifted 
writers have pictured limited fields with skill and 
truth. Mary Noailles Murfree (pseud., Charles Eg- 
bert Craddock) has written of the mountain people of 
Tennessee, while John Fox, Jr. has done the same for 
Kentucky and the Virginia and West Virginia moun- 
tains. George W. Cable and Grace King have de- 
picted Louisiana in the early part of this period, while 
rural life in Georgia has been well described in the 
stories of Joel Chandler Harris, better known from his 
Uncle Remus books. In The Voice of the People (1900) 
Ellen Glasgow has produced, in the form of fiction, an 
important historical document on the rise of the com- 
mon man. In The Southerner (1909) Nicholas Worth 
(understood to be the pseudonym of a distinguished 
editor and diplomat) has made a careful study of condi- 
tions in North Carolina between 1875 and 1895, while 
Thomas Dixon in The Leopard’s Spots (1902) has crude- 
ly but powerfully drawn a picture of the campaign 
for negro disfranchisement in that State. 

In his Old Judge Priest stories, Irvin S. Cobb has 
described the rural towns of Kentucky; and Corra 
Harris from personal experience has given striking 
pictures of the rural South principally in relation to 
religion. The short stories of Harris Dickson portray 
the negro of the Mississippi towns. The stories of 

16 


242 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 


Thomas Nelson Page and of Ruth McEnery Stuart 
should also be mentioned. Owen Wister has drawn a 
striking picture of Charleston in Lady Baltimore 
(1906), while Henry Sydnor Harrison in Queed (1911) 
and his later stories has done something similar for 
Richmond. 


INDEX 


Agricultural Wheel, 34 

Agriculture, farmers’ revolt, 31 
et seq.; farmer and the land, 
60 et seg.; county demon- 
strators, 75-77, 184; Farm 
Loan Act, 84; influence on 
labor, 116; economic future 
of South in, 198-99 

‘Alabama, Conservative party 
in, 12; Kolb in, 37-38; Popu- 
list party, 42; suffrage amend- 
ments, 54-55; boys’ corn 
club, 79; cotton mills, 97; 
iron industry, 101; mines, 
102; bituminous coal, 102; 
school fund, 158 (note); 
Catholics in, 214; repudia- 
tion of debt, 227 

American Tobacco Company, 
103 

Archer, William, Through Afro- 
America, quoted, 141 

Arkansas, hillmen of, 6; Agri- 
cultural Wheei in, 34; elec- 
tion (1896), 44; lumbering, 
100; mixed schools, 161; 
industrialism, 193; migration 
to, 194; woman suffrage, 
202; Catholics in, 214; re- 
pudiation of debt, 230-31 - 

Atlanta (Ga.), Cotton Ex- 
position (1881), 89 

Aycock, C. B., Governor of 
North Carolina, 57 


Badeau, General Adam, and 
expression “‘New South,”’ 7 
Baptist Church, 214, 215-16 


Bayard, T. F., of Delaware, 28 

Birmingham (Ala.), steel cen- 
ter, 101-02 

Blair Bill, 27 

Blease, C. L., of South Caro- 
lina, 122, 150 

Boys ’and girls’ clubs, 76,78-81 

Brothers of Freedom, 34 

Bryan, W. J., presidential 
nomination, 44 

Buck, S. J., The Agrarian 
Crusade, cited, 25 (note), 44 
(note) 

Butler, Marion, of North 
Carolina, 43 

Butler, M. C., of South Caro- 
lina, 13, 41 


Calhoun, J. C., agricultural 
college founded on planta- 
tion of, 42 

Carlisle, J. G., of Kentucky, 29 

Carnegie Foundation and col- 
lege standards, 189 

Carolinas, differing economic 
conditions, 6; Scotch-Irish 
in, 6; see also North Caro- 
lina, South Carolina 

Carpetbaggers’ rule over- 
thrown, 9, 12 

Catholic Church, 214 

Charleston (S. C.), party man- 
agement in, 39; Tillman and, 
40 

Child labor, state restrictions, 
97, 118; in cotton mills, 109, 
114-15, 117; Federal Child 
Labor Act, 118 


243 


244 


Civil service, Cleveland and, 
29 

Civil War, blockade as reason 
for South’s defeat, 3; effect 
on South, 196 

Cleveland, Grover, election 
(1884), 28; and the South, 
29 


“Cleveland Democracy,’’ 40 

Congregational Church, 216 
(note) 

Congress, ex-Confederate sol- 
diers in, 13, 26; negroes in, 
20; reélection of Senators, 
28; “Force Bill’ (1890), 
48; Southern representation, 
200-01 

Congressional Record, cited, 13 

Constitution, Fourteenth 
Amendment, 22 

Corn, price in South, 35; as 
crop in South, 64; boys’ 
corn clubs, 78-79 

Cotton, price and production, 
35; favorite crop, 63, 197; 


mills, 88-98, 108-21, 195; 
cottonseed products, 99- 
100; “‘linters,”’ 100; need 


of cotton-picking machine, 
197-98 
Coxe, Tench, Statement of Arts 
and Manufactures, cited, 86 
Curry, Dr. J. L. M., 27, 169-70 


Daughters of the Confederacy, 
210 

Debt, see Finance 

Delaware as Southern State, 
5; Grange in, 32; school fund 
(1796), 157-58 (note); for- 
eign born in, 194; surplus of 
wheat (1917), 199; Catholics 
in, 214; churches, 214 

Democratic party, at end of 
Reconstruction period, 9; 
called Conservative party, 
11-12; and political consoli- 
dation, 12; Farmers’ Alliance 
and, 36; Georgia convention 


INDEX 


(1890), 37; controlling in- 
fluence of, 38; Populist 
party and, 42-43, 47, 201; 
nature of, 201; split in Ar- 
kansas, 231 

Disciples’ Church, 216 (note) 

Durham (N. C.), tobacco in- 
dustry in, 103 


Education, Blair Bill, 27; in 
South Carolina, 42; Populist 
attitude toward, 46; negro 
schools, 57; agricultural col- 
leges and experiment sta- 
tions, 75; county demon- 
strators, 75-77, 184; boys’ 
and girls’ clubs, 76, 78-81; 
General Education Board, 
76-77, 183-84, 186, 189; 
college students, 83; mills 
aid schools, 119; progress, 
157 et seq.; country schools; 
164; academies, 164-65, 171; 
colleges, 165-66, 187; graded 
schools, 166; taxation for, 
170, 172, 185, 186; opposi- 
tion to public schools, 171- 
172; normal schools, 172; 
better buildings, 172; small 
districts, 173; length of 
school term, 173, 184; funds 
for negro, 182-83; secondary 
schools, 186; preparation for 
college, 188; bibliography, 
240-41; see also Negroes 

Education, Bureau of, Report 
on Negro Education, 174, 178 

Elections, intimidation of ne- 
groes, 18-19; frauds, 19-20; 
North threatens Federal 
control, 21; (1896), 44; 
(1900), 45-46; primaries, 47, 
199; “‘ Force Bill’’ (1890), 48 

Episcopal Church, 215 


Farm Loan Act, 84 

Farmers’ Alliance, 30, 33 

Farmers’ Union of Louisiana, 
34 


INDEX 


Fiction on the South, bibliog- 
raphy of, 241-42 

Field, Marshall, and Company 
own mills in North Carolina, 
95 

Finance, problem in South, 22; 
repudiation of state debts, 
22, 227-33; economies of 
new state governments, 24— 
25; platform of National 
Alliance and Knights of 
Labor on, 34; subtreasury 
plan, 34-35; merchants as 
bankers, 61-65; crop lien, 
62-63; Farm Loan Act, 84; 
see also Tariff, Taxation 

Fisk University, 179 

Fleming, W. L., The Sequel of 
Appomattox, cited, 2 (note), 
27 (note); Civil War and 
Reconstruction in Alabama, 
cited, 227 (note) 

Florida, end of carpetbag rule 
in, 9; mines, 102; cigar indus- 
try, 104; bonds as part of 
Peabody Fund, 167; migra- 
tion to, 194; debt, 227 

Freedmen’s Aid _ Societies, 
schools for negroes opened 
by, 173 

Freedmen’s Bureau, 27 

French in Louisiana, 6 

Friends, Society of, influence 
in South, 16 


Garland, A. H., of Arkansas, 28 

General Education Board, 76- 
77, 183-84, 186, 189 

Georgia, Democratic conven- 
tion (1890), 37; Populist 
party (1892), 42; cotton 
mills, 88, 97; knitting in- 
dustry, 98; cottonseed oil 
industry, 100; fertilizer in- 
dustry, 100; lynchings in, 
155; school fund (1817), 158 
(note); imports, 195; Catho- 
lics in, 214; repudiation of 
debt, 229 


245 


Girls’ canning clubs, 80 

Gordon, J. B., 13, 37 

Grady, H. W., uses expression 
“New South,” 7-8; editor 
of Atlanta Constitution, 223 

Grange movement, 29, 31-33 

Great War, negroes in knitting 
mills during, 126; migration 
of negroes to North during, 
132-33; negro women in Red 
Cross work, 149; and capital 
in South, 196; South and, 
201; and nationalism, 210-11 

Greenback movement, 25, 
29-30 


Hamilton, J. G. de R., Recon- 
struction in North Carolina, 
cited, 228 (note) 

Hampton, Wade, 13, 41 

Hampton Institute, 174, 177, 
178 

Hookworm disease, 73—74 

Howard University, 179 

Hughes, C. E., North Carolina 
vote for (1916), 57 


Industries, vegetable growing, 
84; industrial development, 
86 et seq.; textile, 88-98, 
106-21, 126-27; manufac- 
ture of cottonseed products, 
99-100; fertilizers, 100; lum- 
bering, 100, 123-24; iron, 
101; wood, 101; steel, 101- 
102; mining, 102; tobacco, 
102-04, 124-26; roller mills, 
104; close to raw material, 
194-95; see also Agriculture, 
Cotton 


Jeanes, Anna T., 183 
Jeanes Fund, 183, 184 


Kelley, O. H., 31 

Kellogg, W. P., Governor of 
Louisiana, 229 . 

Kentucky, as Southern State, 
5; Grange in, 32; mines, 


246 


Kentucky—Continued 
102; bituminous coal, 102; 
tobacco industry, 103; free 
from lynchings, 155; school 
fund, 158 (note); Catholics 
in, 214; Disciples in, 216 
(note) 

Knapp, Bradford, son of S. A., 
78 


Knapp, Dr. S. A., 76-77, 78 

Knights of Labor, meeting at 
St. Louis (1889), 34 

Kolb, R. F., 37-38 


Labor, conditions in South, 
106 et seg.; native, 106, 194; 
negro, 106-07, 126-27; in 
textile industry, 106-21; 
state restrictions, 118; in 
furniture factories, 122-23; 
in lumber mills, 123-24; 
contract, 123-24; tobacco 
manufacture, 124-26;  or- 
ganization of, 127—28; recent 
problem, 197; see also Child 
labor 

Lamar, L. Q. C., of Missouri, 
28, 29 

Land, demand for restriction 
to settlers, 34; tenant sys- 
tem, 60 et seq., 219; different 
plans of landholding, 65- 
69; relation between land- 
lord and tenant, 70; white 
tenancy, 79; tilled by owners, 
74-75; cultivation, 81; food 
crops, 81-82 

Liquor traffic, made State 
monopoly, 41-42; problem 
after Reconstruction, 57-59; 
see also Prohibition 

Louisiana, negro majority in, 
10; Farmers’ Union of, 34; 
election (1892), 42; election 
(1896), 44; ‘“‘grandfather 
clause”’ in constitution, 51- 
52; lumbering, 100; mines, 
102; tobacco industry, 103; 
cigar industry, 104; lynch- 


INDEX 


ings in, 155; mixed schools, 
160-61; Catholics in, 214; 
churches, 214; repudiation 
of debt, 229-30 
Lumbering, 100, 123-24 
Lutheran Church, 216 (note) 


Mahone, William, 
232 

Manufactures, see Industries 

Maryland, as Southern State, 
5; Grange in, 32; fertili- 
zer industry, 100; manu- 
factures, 104; free from 
lynchings, 154-55; school 
fund (1813), 158 (note); 
foreign born in, 193; sur- 
plus of wheat (1917), 199; 
Catholics in, 214; churches, 
Q14 

Massachusetts leads in cotton 
products, 98 

Meharry Medical College, 179 

Methodist Church, 214, 215- 
216 

Mills, R. Q., of Texas, 29 

Mining, 102 

Minnesota, 
104-05 

Mississippi, negro majority in, 
10; new constitution (1890), 
49; suffrage, 49-50; lumber- 
ing, 100; lynchings in, 155; 
school fund, 158 (note); 
mixed schools in, 160-61; 
bonds as part of Peabody 
Fund, 167; industrialism, 
193; foreign born in, 193- 
194; Catholics in, 214; debt, 
QQ7 

Missouri, not included in 
South, 5; Grange in, 32; 
election (1896), 44; tobacco 
industry, 103; woman suf- 
frage, 202 

Missouri Compromise and 
sectionalism, 16 

Morrison, W. R., 29 

Mountaineers, 14-16 


General 


manufactures, 


INDEX 


Nashville (Tenn.), Peabody 
Normal College, 169; Me- 
harry Medical College, 179; 
Vanderbilt University, 188 

National Association for the 
Advancement of Colored 
People, Thirty Years of 
Lynching (1919), 154 (note) 

National Farmers’ Alliance 
and Coéperative Union of 
America, 34 

Negroes, suffrage, 2, 18-19, 21, 
45, 48, 49, 50-55, 202-03; 
distribution of, 10; in moun- 
tain counties, 15; support 
Federal officials, 17; sent to 
Congress, 20; relation of 
races, 22, 129 et seq.; fear of 
domination wanes, 30; not 
admitted to Grange, 32; 
politics in North cane 
45; segregation, 57; use o 
drugs, 59; as share tenants, 
67; opportunity for, 71; in 
furniture factories, 122; in 
tobacco factories, 124—25; in 
textile industry, 126-27; per- 
sonal characteristics, 126— 
127, 135; occupations, 127, 
133-37; unorganized, 127- 
128; increase in numbers, 
130-32; migration to North, 
132-33, 156, 197; farm 
owners, 134; illiteracy, 137- 
139, 166; treatmentin North, 
139-40; treatment in South, 
140 et seq.; “‘old-time negro,” 
142-43; “‘new negro,” 142, 
143-44; educated, 144-47; 
and Great War, 149; mu- 
lattoes, 150; and lower 
classes of whites, 150-51; 
lynchings, 151-55; plans for 
solution of problem, 155- 

- 156; problem in South Africa, 
156; education, 160-63, 164, 
171-72, 173-84; criminals 

_ and dependents,204—05,220— 
223; bibliography, 238-40 


247 


New England, mill machinery 
from, 90; mills build South- 
ern branches, 92; Southern 
wages compared with, 110— 
111 

NewOrleans, Exposition(1884), 
89; tobacco industry, 103 

New York, election frauds, 20 

Newspapers, 223-24 

North, negroes in, 139; migra- 
tion of negroes to, 132-33, 
156, 197; treatment of ne- 
groes in, 139-40 

North Carolina, Friends in, 
16; negroes sent to Congress 
from, 20: gives up local 
self-government, 21; Popu- 
list party, 42; revolt from 
Democratic party, 43; elec- 
tion (1896), 44: election 
(1900), 45; fusion govern- 
ment, 45; suffrage, 52-54: 
Republican opposition in,56— 
57; textile products (1810), 
86; first cotton mill (1810), 
88; Marshall Field and 
Company owns mills in, 95: 
cotton mills, 97; knitting in- 
dustry, 98; lumbering, 100; 
furniture manufacture, 101; 
minerals, 102; tobacco pro- 
duction, 103; Republican 
party, 122; free from lynch- 
ings, 155; school fund, 158- 
159; public schools, 163, 184— 
185; school term, 173; negro 
education, 179-81; school 
expenditures, 179-81; for- 
eign born in, 193-94; chair- 
manship of committees in 
65th Congress, 200 (note); 
Catholics in, 214; school 
libraries, 224; repudiation of 
debt, 227-29 

North Carolina, University of, 
168 


Ocala (Fla.), Alliance conven 
tion, 34 


248 


Oklahoma, as Southern State, 
5-6; disfranchising amend- 
ment, 55-56; mines, 102; 
disproportionate number of 
lynchings in, 155; migration 
to, 194; surplus of wheat 
(1917), 199; woman suffrage, 
202; Catholics in, 214 


Page, Thomas Nelson, and 
“typical Southerner,’ 203 
Patrons of Husbandry, sce 

Grange movement 
Peabody, George, 167 
Peabody Fund, 167 
Peabody Normal College, 169 
People’s party, 36; see also 

Populist party 
Phelps Stokes, Caroline, 183 
Phelps Stokes Fund, 183 
Philadelphia election frauds, 

20 
Plantations, system discon- 

tinued, 60; in the Old South, 

87 
Politics, consolidation of South, 

10-12; Confederate soldiers 

in, 13; see also names of 
parties 

Pope, General John, predic- 
tion as to negro development, 

130 
Populist party in South, 42 et 

seq.; see also People’s party 
Presbyterian Church, 214, 215 
Prices, decline, 25, 31; of 
cotton, 35; Populist party 
and rising, 46; Southern 
credit system and, 72; rise 

of, 84; (1890-1900), 107 
Pritchard, J. C., 43, 45 
Prohibition, South and, 58, 

202; see also Liquor traffic 


Quakers, see Friends, Society of 
Railroads, government owner- 


ship, 34 
Ransom, M. T., 13, 43 


INDEX 


Readjusters, political party in 
Virginia, 231-32 

Reconstruction, 2-4; end of, 
9; Union element makes 
possible, 17; debt, 22-23; 
and schools, 157, 159-61; 
bibliography, 235 

Red Cross, 149, 211 

Religion, 213 et seq. 

Republican party, and end of 
Reconstruction, 9; called 
Radical party, 11; and moun- 
taineers, 16; Quakers and, 
16; Union element in South, 
16-17; organization dis- 
continued, 21; failures, 26; 
success (1893-95), 43 

Richmond (Va.), tobacco 
industry, 103, 104 

Riddleberger, H. H., 231-32 

Roads, 107 

Rockefeller Foundation, re- 
searches, 73-74 

Roosevelt, Theodore, Missis- 
sippi vote (1912), 50 

Rosenwald, Julius, and negro 
education, 183 


St. Louis, session of National 
Alliance at (1889), 34; to- 
bacco industry, 103 

Scalawags, Confederate 
diers against, 12 

Scotch-Irish in South, 6; and 
Presbyterianism, 215 

Scott, W. A., The Repudiation 
of State Debts, cited, 227 
(note) 

Sears, Barnas, General Agent 
of Peabody Fund, 167-68 

Secession, past issue, 192 

Sewall, Arthur, candidate for 
Vice-President, 44 

Silver, free coinage, 43-44 

Slater, John F., Fund, 182-83 

Slavery among mountaineers, 
15 

Smith, F. Hopkinson, and 
‘‘typical Southerner,’’ 203 


sol- 


INDEX 


Social conditions, 82-83, 203 
et seqg.; in mill towns, 119- 
21 

Sons of Veterans, 210 

South, New as distinguished 
from Old, 1-8; geographical 
limits, 5-6; beginning of 
New, 10; political consolida- 
tion, 10-12; character of 
people, 11; Republicanism 
in, 13 e¢ seq.; mountaineers, 
14-16; election frauds, 19- 
20; debt, 22-24; and agra- 
rian revolt, 26; participation 
in national affairs, 28; 
Grange in, 31-33; social 
conditions, 82-83, 119-21, 
203 et seq.; Socialist vote in, 
128; growing sense of re- 
sponsibility for negro, 148; 
education, 157 et seq.; of to- 
day, 191 et seg.; population, 
193-94; present political con- 
dition, 199-203; jails and 
almshouses, 204-05; orphan- 
ages, 205-06; juvenile de- 
linquents, 206; democracy, 
206-07; hospitality, 207; 
amusements, 208, 217; power 
of public opinion, 212-13; 
churches, 213-17; crimes, 
220-21; leaders, 223; news- 
papers, 223-24; books and 
libraries, 224-25; contrasts in, 
226; bibliography, 235-42 

South Carolina, inhabitants, 6; 
negro majority, 10; “‘eight 
box law,’ 19; negroes sent 
to Congress from, 20; politi- 
eal revolt, 39; representa- 
tion in Senate, 41; suffrage 
amendments, 50-51; boys’ 
corn club, 79; cotton mills, 
97; Blease in, 122; school 
fund, 158 (note); mixed 
schools, 160-61; foreign born 
in, 193-94; Catholics in, 214; 
repudiation of debt, 229 

Stokes, see Phelps Stokes 


249 


Stone, A. H., on Mississippi 
negro, 71-72 

Suffrage, see Negroes, Women 

Supreme Court, Oklahoma 
disfranchisement amendment, 
declared unconstitutional, 
55-56, 203; Bailey vs. Ala- 
bama, 123-24; South Da- 
kota vs. North Carolina, 228; 
cases against Louisiana, 230; 
and Virginia debt, 231, 232; 
debt of West Virginia, 232 


Taft, W. H., Mississippi vote 
(1912), 50; North Carolina 
vote (1908), 56 

Tariff, South and Cleveland 
agree on, 29; platform of 
National Alliance calls for 
reform of, 34 

Taxation, Mississippi, 49; for 
education, 170, 172, 185, 186 

Tennessee, Grange in, 31-32; 
Populist party in, 42; girls’ 
canning club, 80; cotton 
mills, 98; knitting industry, 
98; iron industry, 101; 
bituminous coal, 102; mines, 
102; school fund (1806), 157 
(note); woman suffrage, 202; 
Catholics in, 214; Disciples 
in, 216 (note) 

Texas, Farmers’ Alliance, 33, 
34; Populist party (1892), 
42; boll weevil, 76; encour- 
agement of food crops in, 
82; cottonseed oil industry, 

- 100; mines, 102; lynchings in, 
155; foreign born in, 193; 
migration to, 194; woman 
suffrage, 202; Catholics in, 
214; no attempt made to re- 
pudiate debt, 227 

Tillman, Benjamin R., 39-41 

Tobacco, a favorite crop, 63; 
industry, 102-04; labor con- 
ditions in factories, 124—26 

Tompkins, D. A., on cotton 
production, 108 


250 
Toombs, Robert, and New 
South, 192 


Tourgée, A. W., 2; Appeal to 
Cesar, 131 

Tuskegee Institute, 174, 177, 
178; statistics on lynching, 
154 (note) 


Vance, Z. B., of North Caro- 
lina, 13, 43; and teaching of 
pedagogy, 174-75 

Vanderbilt University, 188 

Vardaman, James K., of Missis- 
sippi, 150 

Virginia, differing economic 
conditions, 6; cotton mills, 
98; knitting industry, 98; 
iron industry, 101; mines, 
102; tobacco production, 
103; school fund (1810), 
157-58 (note); surplus of 
wheat (1917), 199; Catho- 
lics in, 214; repudiation of 
debt, 231-32 


Wages, in cotton mills, 109, 
110, 113; in tobacco fac- 
tories, 126 

Washington, Booker T., cited, 
143; “‘intellectuals’”” ene- 
mies of, 146; and Tuskegee, 
177 

Washington (D. C.), Howard 
University, 179 

Watson, T. E., 44 


INDEX 


Watterson, Henry, of the 
Louisville Courier-Journal, 
223 


West Virginia, as Southern 
State, 5; Grange in, 32; iron 
industry, 101; bituminous 
coal, 102; mines, 102; free 
from lynchings, 154-55; 
Catholics in, 214; Virginia 
assigns debt to (1871), 231; 
settlement of controversy, 
232-33 

Wheat, winter, 63-64; roller 
mills, 104 

Whig party dislikes 
Democrat, 12 

Wiley, C. H., superintendent 
of education in North Caro- 
lina, 159 

Wilmington (N. C.), uprising 
of whites in, 45 

Wilson, Woodrow, North Caro- 
lina vote (1916), 57 

Winston-Salem (N. C.), to- 
bacco industry, 103 

Winthrop, R. C., of Massa- 
chusetts, and Peabody Fund, 
167 

Women, in mills, 97; suffrage, 
202, 213; position in South, 
208-10; and Great War, 
211-12; independence, 213; 
and churches, 213-14 


Young, T. M., The American 
Cotton Industry, quoted, 112 


name 


- i 


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